Still shaking, Nira headed for her pile of clothes and towel while the young dragon began to feed on the fish that had been all set to feed on her. The act of drying her skin and hair, really just a bumbled brushing with the towel, helped release some of her jerky adrenaline.
“Thank you, Storm,” she finally stuttered. The dragon growled at her, but it was an acknowledgement, not a warning. She couldn’t really understand the creature, not really, but she had a sense of her vocalizations and Storm seemed to understand at least part of what she said.
She didn’t even know the dragon’s name and had chosen to call her Storm, which was short for Storm Gift. Nira had found the dragon almost two years ago, the morning after a tremendous ocean squall had rolled over the island. Just the size of a large horse at that time, Storm had been a crumpled, wounded mound on this very beach. At first, Nira had thought she’d found a dead sea creature, at least until she got close enough to see the wings. Then she’d been afraid she had a dead dragon on her hands, but a warm exhalation from a half-buried nostril had blown sand and grit over the hand she’d been leaning on.
Unsure of what to do, she just followed her instincts as best she could. She first cleared the sand away from Storm’s nostrils so she could breathe easier. Then she built several large fires from dry driftwood she had previously stored in the little cave, ringing them around the cold, wet dragonet. She brought a waxed canvas cloth, using it to line a sand hole she dug near the dragon’s mouth and filling the makeshift basin with many bags of fresh rainwater from the pools in the rocks. When Storm had regained consciousness, she dragged herself to the water, drank of it, and promptly passed back out. But the motion had exposed her wings fully and Nira had seen the large rents and tears that seemed more like claw wounds than weather damage. Again, not knowing what else to do, she had sewn as much of the shredded skin as she could, spreading healing salves on all of the dragon’s wounds, and keeping the fires fueled.
Her father had been away, overseeing the harvest of new wood for his shop, and didn’t return until two days later. By then, the dragon had awoken long enough to eat fish Nira caught and then drag herself into the cave, which Nira had lined with dry straw from the fields atop the cliff.
Unsure of her father’s response to the presence of such a powerful creature, Nira never found the right path to telling him about Storm. And Storm had healed quickly on a steady diet of fish and crab that Nira worked hard to catch. Luckily, the little bronze dragon had found her feet before the week was out and had taken to the ocean to catch some of her own food. At first, Nira worried that her wounds would get infected, but the water seemed to help more than it hurt. Over the last twenty months, she had seen Storm first heal and then begin to grow, filling out like it was her job. The scars on those giant bronze wings had filled Nira with a fear that Storm would never fly again, yet within three months of their meeting, the dragon was able to soar short distances, launching herself from partway up the cliffs, out over the ocean surface. Gradually the distance grew and Nira learned another fear—that she’d return one day to the cove to find her most amazing friend had flown away. And the dragon’s gift for invisibility gave her numerous scares that her fears had been realized.
It first occurred three days after the storm. Nira had picked her way down the path and peered into the cave, only to see no sign of her patient. Panicked, she had rushed inside and stumbled right over the sleeping dragon, who had woke with a jerk and a flood of her natural coloring filling out her form. Then she had settled back to rest and Nira had seen her coloring shift, changing to match that of the cave walls and floor so closely that it appeared the beast was invisible. Only the scars on her body failed to change color, but with her wings folded, the bulk of the pale healing skin had been covered by healthy hide that had no difficulty performing its most excellent camouflage.
Nira learned to kind of see the dragon despite the adaptive coloring, even though it changed so fast that it modified as the dragon moved around. By kind of looking with the edge of her vision, Nira was often able to see Storm’s outline, a skill that got easier with practice. But that almost-invisibility kept Storm from being seen by her father or any of the local fishermen who sometimes worked the waters below the cliffs. And the dragon avoided hunting any of the island’s livestock after a crying Nira had pleaded with her the one time she ate a sheep. Deer and wild boar were fine, and all the redfin, basketmouth, cobblebacks, and any other large fish she could catch. And of course, devil crab that Nira brought her. But Nira had never seen her friend catch anything the size of the grayback siorcfish she was currently consuming.
The meal was gory and while Nira was used to cleaning fish and the
