Elvenbane

Hah.

Keman's normal movement...in completely still air...was with a series of lurches as his wings beat. This was complicated with sideslips and drops as he hit turbulence and thermals...and punctuated by a few...'very few...blessedly smooth moments when he glided for a bit, resting his wings. If Valyn had been inclined to motion sickness, the trip would have been an unmitigated disaster. And if there had been a real storm instead of the rain-drip they'd been getting, Valyn would have been torn off the dragon's back before they'd flown a league.

If they'd had any idea how much dragon-riding hurt...and how little it would take to induce him to take to a horse with a proper saddle. Or a grel. Even a bad-tempered grel...

No one would ever be tempted to make a romance out of dragon-riding, once he'd tried it for himself.

Valyn risked a look ahead...and saw a sprinkling of multicolored lights against the dark of trees and tree shadows. More, he spotted a slender, pink-tinted finger of light rising gracefully from the dark bulk below. That could only be the illuminated tower Triana had erected for her last party, the one with the enormous, cushioned platform at the top that was little more than one gigantic bed, surrounded by windows and roofed with a skylight...

Valyn flushed, even though there was no one here to see him. Things had happened at that party he hadn't even told Shadow. In many ways, Triana and Dyran were a great deal alike.

But that tower alone showed how unlike Triana was from the rest of the elven lords in the ways that counted. Nearly every other lord Valyn knew lived in manors entirely closed off from the sight of the natural world. It was as if they were trying to create their own little worlds, untouched by the reality outside their doors. Triana's villa was glass from floor to ceiling, and she often went up in the tower even when she was alone, to watch a storm, the stars, or the clouds float peacefully overhead.

Or so she told me.

Keman stopped lurching, and began a long, gliding descent; his goal, that same tower, or near it. He would land outside the manor, and Valyn would walk in, talk to Triana...

Hopefully she was between parties...

...and that would settle once and for all whether or not they had a sanctuary. Hopefully, they did. He hadn't lied when he said Triana might well offer them shelter out of sheer spite, or just for the thrill of it. What he hadn't said was how unpredictable Triana was. If she was in a bad mood...their arrival might well lighten it, because it would alleviate her boredom.

On the other hand, she might just have Valyn thrown out without even listening to him.

Valyn emerged from his thoughts when he realized that the ground was coming up very quickly...and he hadn't the vaguest idea of how a dragon landed. He ducked his head desperately, and clung on with every fiber, as Keman suddenly backwinged like a falcon at the end of a stoop, huge membranous wings flailing the air with a sound like thunderclaps, blowing dead leaves and other debris in front of him.

He landed with a lurch that threw Valyn forward; and unable to stop himself, the elven lord rolled over Keman's shoulder and landed on his rear in the grass, with a thud that did very little for his pride or dignity.

Before he could say anything, though, there was a writhing next to him that made him turn away...for, in the shape his stomach was in, watching Keman shift forms might well be the final insult. When he turned back, there was a large...very large...cow gazing at him with dark, solemn eyes.

'I'll be right back,' he assured the youngster, as the cow joined a herd of her sisters. The cow looked over her shoulder and nodded, before putting her head down to gorge on grass as fast as she could pull it up.

He hadn't known the dragon could switch sex, too. Was it all external, he wondered, or...

Never mind.

Melody drifted towards him on the sultry breeze, with a hint of exotic perfumes and a breath of flower-scent. Triana's home was always surrounded with music; it was one of her abilities, the conjuring of sounds.

And when the music wasn't mage-born, she had an entire staff of humans trained as minstrels, both vocalists and instrumentalists, enough so that she had music night and day. Valyn hurried towards the lights and music in the near distance, and as he drew nearer the manor, he recognized two things that filled him with mingled relief and apprehension. There were no signs of guests, which meant Triana was not having one of her parties. And there were lights blazing in the top of the tower, and a single moving shape up in the room at the top...which, since only Triana went up there alone, meant that she was there, in a reasonably good mood, and awake...and probably bored.

Probably very bored, since most of her usual companions were...if their fathers were anything like Dyran...out on various attempts to solve the mystery of 'dragon-skin.'

And Valyn's friends might just be exactly what she needed to relieve that boredom. But what she'd do with them was anybody's guess...

V'dann Triana er-Lord Falcion paced the narrow edge of walkway that rimmed the inside of the windows of her tower, and stared at the lights of her manor below her. A restlessness was on her, and she hadn't stopped pacing since she came up here. She'd hoped to walk off her nerve-born energy, but the exercise wasn't working.

Damn, I'm bored. I need to do something.

Maybe she just ought to call down and get Rafe sent up...

Ancestors. She was not only bored, she was losing her memory. She'd broken him yesterday, and Mentor hadn't finished training a new stud for her.

Now not only bored but frustrated, she considered the options before her, as she twisted a silken strand of her hip-length, pale gold hair in one hand.

Not another party. Not until people stopped sending their children off to chase lizard-skins. Right now the only ones free to come to the party were the ones she'd rather not see. At least, not without plenty of more amusing people around at the same time. There was a limit to how much stupidity she was going to endure for the sake of entertainment.

For a moment she considered joining the hunt; after all, there weren't too many elven lords with her resources out looking for the things. One rumor and the scrap of skin that verified it weren't important enough to rate the attentions of a Clan head...but it was significant enough if true for the Clans to put subordinates and younger sons on it. Now if she found them...

No, it was a stupid idea. If she found these so-called 'dragons,' what would she do with them? Hunt them herself? She wasn't the kind of fool who thought risking her life was a good way to combat ennui. Send her underlings in to hunt them? Then what? Make a fortune?

She didn't need a fortune. She had one. As long as her people kept their skimming within reason, what more did she need? Father had picked the best possible people to run things before he fell off that horse...she'd put them in the best possible position for her. As long as she did well, they did well. If one of them found the stupid things on his own, fine. Otherwise, why bother with it?

She had the suspicion that it was all a hoax, anyway. And she mentally congratulated the author, whoever he was. Everyone seemed to have forgotten that the skins could have been made magically. After all, the one-horns, the grels, and plenty of other animals had been made that way. All it took was patience and the proper root material, and a very powerful magician.

She stared down at the illuminated water-garden below her, and chuckled a little at the thought of someone spending all that time on a prank.

It sounded like something she'd do.

It would have taken years to set up, with the 'wild' girl and all, but who cared? If it was a hoax, it was brilliant. She wished she had thought of it herself!

Now that was an intriguing idea...

She wouldn't be able to pull it off if it turned out that this was a hoax...but if the whole thing just fizzled, or it actually turned out to be the real thing, maybe she should try pulling a similar trick. It would be no end amusing to watch those stiff old elders chasing their tails over something that never existed! She could do it, too, if she could lure one of the few youngsters who was a strong mage over to help