Elvenbane

Kin.:

He followed, head down, tail dragging, as she led the way on foot back to their lair.

I'm sorry child, she said to herself with a sigh. I know it isn't fair. But that doesn't make it less a fact. Be grateful you learned your lesson this way. It could have been worse.

Shana watched the dragons taking to the air again with a feeling of profound relief. It didn't look like Keman was going to be punished that badly...and things could have been much, much worse if the others had found out what the fight had actually been about.

She put her back to the boulder and slid down it, resting her head on her folded arms, and her arms on her knees. I have got to learn how to protect myself, she decided. I...

'You!' spat an angry young voice. Shana spun around, to see that Myre had returned. She quickly scrambled to the top of a pile of boulders, putting herself out of reach of Myre's claws.

'What do you want?' she asked angrily, feeling a bit more secure in her new perch. 'You already got Keman in trouble. Isn't that enough for you?'

Myre narrowed her eyes and licked her thin lips. 'I just want you to know something, rat,' she said nastily. 'I don't know what Keman told you, but do you know why he didn't say anything about you to the others? It's because you're just an animal, rat. You're just a filthy little defective animal, you're not worth fighting over. You're not worth even one scale off one of the Kin. And Keman knows that. He knows he'd have gotten into even bigger trouble if they knew the fight was over you.'

'That's not true!' Shana shouted furiously...

But Myre only laughed, secure in the knowledge that she'd scored a hit, and turned and flew clumsily off.

Chapter 7

MYRE HATES ME. Shana shivered, thinking about the angry, reddish glare that had been at the back of Myre's eyes. Myre really hated her. The dragon-et was so stupid Shana wouldn't care, but Myre had Rovy to help her, and that was scary. She slid down the boulder and curled up in a little patch of shelter and shade between it and another jagged chunk of rock that was even larger.

Myre was too stupid to think up anything for herself, even a lie, so that 'animal' stuff must have been something she got from Rovy. Shana rubbed her eyes and the back of her bruised neck, seething with anger. Right now she'd have given anything to get back at both of them. Rovy hated her too, but that was mostly because Shana was a way he could get at Keman. He d hate anything Keman liked.

But there was more to it than that. The expression on Rovy's face; that had told her he'd loved every minute of pain she'd felt. He really wanted to hurt me bad. And now that Keman hurt him to protect me, he'll try to take it out on me.

She couldn't hide from him forever. I've got to figure out how to protect myself.

She pondered the problem, and decided that the best way to keep herself safe would be to learn how to change back into one of the Kin. Once she was in draconic form, she'd have the protection of all the adults in the Lair. They didn't care a seed for an orphaned 'animal,' but an orphan of the Kin was entitled to the protection of every adult of the Kin.

And if they didn't protect Shana from Rovy once she was obviously Kin, they'd be in trouble with every other Lair. That'll work.

She shoved herself away from the rock and stood up, brushing the red dust and sand off her legs and arms. She kept herself sheltered behind the rocks, and peeked around the edge of the boulders to make sure that Myre wasn't lurking somewhere, the back of her neck prickling with nervousness, before she moved cautiously out into the open.

There was no sign of the young dragonet out in the wash, nor even at the entrance to it, but Shana was taking no chances. She turned around and trotted a little farther down towards the back of the wash, until she reached the dead end. A spill of gravel pouring down the steep hillside at the rear gave her a climbable, if slippery, ramp up to the narrow ledge that ran around the side of the cliff.

It wasn't an easy climb. For every two steps she made, she slipped back one, as the loose gravel slid out from under her feet. Shana was out of breath by the time she made the ledge itself; hot and sweaty, and covered with dirt, with both elbows skinned and her knee bleeding again, she sat down on the ledge to rest for a moment before getting on.

She took slow, deep breaths, as her foster mother had taught her, and stared out over the wash. The ground was still torn up where Rovy and Keman had tussled; with no rain due it would probably look that way until fall. She just didn't understand what was wrong with Rovy. Why did he want to hurt people? Why did he always have to be the biggest and have the best of everything? He was already stronger than anyone else in his group. His mother gave him anything he wanted. So why did he have to bully the rest of the young?

She wiped her wrist across her forehead, and stared at the smear of mud on her hand; licked the sweat off her upper lip. It tasted salty and gritty. She thought wistfully that if she had been that big and strong, no one would want to hurt her. Maybe they'd even want to be her friend. They'd let her play in their games, and she'd get them to let Keman in, too. Rovy could have anything he wanted if he didn't keep trying to take it.

She had finally caught her breath, so she got to her feet, and tried to ignore how her elbows stung and her knee ached. She squinted at the bright blue sky, making a guess about the time. She couldn't see the sun, here against the cliff-face, but by the shadows it was probably late afternoon. There should be plenty of time to get to her favorite hiding place and master the shift before supper. And even if there wasn't, well, she had some roots she'd put away in her sleeping-place, in case Foster Mother either forgot to save her something, or felt she should share Keman's punishment. This wasn't the first time she and Keman had been sent to bed supperless, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

Poor Keman. He doesn't even have a bone to chew on. She sighed, and wished she was bigger, there was no way she'd be able to carry in something big enough to feed Keman, even if she knew how to kill it.

Then she brightened, and began edging her way along the ledge. Once she learned how to change, she could go make a kill, and she would be big enough to take it to Keman. Something like a two- horn, maybe, or a grassrunner. Those wouldn't be too big to carry, if she was Keman's size. If she could sneak it in through the back way, Foster Mother would never know she'd done it. She'd just have to learn how to shift, that was all. If Rovy could do it, it couldn't be that hard.

Shana had never even taken Keman to her favorite hiding place; she'd found it when she was just old enough to be climbing around in the hills by herself, and had literally fallen into it. It wasn't that she didn't want to share it, but one problem with showing it to her foster brother was that Keman probably would not have been able to fit through the narrow entrance. Another was that if Keman did fit through the entrance, it would be a very tight squeeze to have both of them inside at the same time.

It was another cul-de-sac, but this time halfway up one of the hills. From above, it looked like a very narrow chimney-crack, but the crack itself got wider just beneath the entrance, and was quite large enough for Shana to move about in it at the bottom. Since it faced westward, there was sunlight shining down into it for most of the day. Enough rain and dew collected that short, springy grass grew in the bottom, and there were even a few small animals making their homes there. Swallows nested on the walls, and Shana had seen at least one family of ground