How odd.
Azania said softly, “Thank you, Dragon.”
He inclined his muzzle, and snuffled gently at Inzashu’s back. “You are wounded and need treatment. I’m sorry about … about being such a Dragon. You see, in my culture, it is regarded as detestable to end suffering before full measure has been returned to the perpetrator of the wrong. We see it as a kind of righteous balance, I suppose. It must seem an awfully strange belief to you.”
She sniffed, shivering at his touch, but then swivelled on her heel to face him. “I … I understand, I think.”
“You do? Ah, sorry.”
“I suppose it’s very silly of me to think that a Dragon will behave, believe and simply be just like a bigger Human.” Inzashu made a very tiny, tremulous quirk of her lips. “What would you say if I told you that many Skartun will kill an infant if its upper teeth come in before the lower ones? They believe the child is cursed.”
Blergh! he spat, taken aback. “You’re serious?”
“Sad,” she said.
Reaching out, he gave her an awkward paw hug. “I know that these are meant to work marvels for the Human heart by a process no Dragon understands.”
She shivered. “I haven’t had a great many hugs in my life. Nahritu-N’shula was not a believer in physical affection. I had most of mine from a nurse companion who travelled with us for some years, because an eminent Psyromantic Mage could not be bothered with caring for a whinging infant.”
So bitter, at eleven years old.
This was her life’s experience. Deliberately, he said, “Well, I haven’t had many hugs either. Very undraconic. In fact, many Dragons believe Humans carry unnameable infectious diseases. The way they talk, you’d imagine their scales were in danger of falling off.”
“Like yours?” Azania said, pulling at his tail.
To say he jumped was an understatement. He nearly leaped out of his scales. WHAT?
The Princess held up a scale. “I think you might be shedding.”
“DRAGONS DO NOT … sorry, but …”
She prodded at her ears. “Please, Dragon, I understand that you’re upset, but those sonic effects are going to burst my eardrums one of these days. It hurts when you’re that loud.”
“Sorry!”
“I didn’t mean to scare you, but don’t Dragons lose scales all the time?”
He stared at the patch on his mid-tail. Not like that. Not as if he had mange. Lifting the next one over with his talon, he felt how loose it was. How flimsy. Upon investigation, he noticed many other brittle patches peppered up and down his flanks, along his back, and right down to the end of his tail.
Not to mention the holes the green had clawed in his hide, oozing copious quantities of silver blood. No flying on today.
He said, “My quest for new fires appears to have taken an unexpected turn.”
“Plot twist,” said the Princess.
“I don’t like plot twists; they hurt,” Dragon growled sulkily. “Could I have a new author, please?”
Azania smiled, “I’ll hire a decent one, tomorrow. Instant new coat of scales. For now, let’s get you patched up, my friend. I don’t like the idea of you leaking quite so much.”
“Dragons do not leak!”
* * * *
Unfortunately, that was not entirely true. He oozed. A lot. Nor had the Terror Clan beast bothered to clean his talons before tucking into his guts with zest. Desperately wanting a swim to clean off and relieve his inflamed scales, Dragon wallowed about in the shallows but still had to flame the waters regularly to keep the little pests from nipping around his ankles. When one absconded with a scale, he decided that enough was enough. In what may have been described as a temper tantrum, which he should have grown out of by the time he was five, he turned fifty feet of river into a steam bath.
The water did not care, but the barbecued fish did.
With utter predictability, his fish dinner tasted as disgusting as it looked. Spiny, oily and altogether disagreeable.
Time for a nap on that sandbank.
“Tuck you in with a duck-down pillow and silken sheets, Dragon?” Azania cooed.
“Watch out, I’m known for my biting humour.”
“Aye, your jokes have a real snap.”
“Sharp wit, Princess.”
“I have you to sharpen my claws upon, gnarr,” she chuckled, pretending her fingers were rending talons. Decent impression. Never in a million years would he admit how amusing she was.
“How’s that hole in your hide, Highness?”
“Shall we compare? Or are you just going to be all ‘holier than thou?’ ”
This time he guffawed so hard, he sprayed sand in her face.
Served her right.
He added, “I am holier than thou, but then, I have much more scope to be holy than you.” Flexing his shoulder muscles to illustrate the point with suitable draconic gravitas, he reached out to chuck her beneath the chin. “Quantity over quality, say I.”
“The art of the self-defeating argument.”
“I am perfection personified.”
“How do you personify a Dragon? Dragonify?”
“Good point. On a more serious note, is your sister alright?”
“Long but shallow scratch, thankfully. The armour took care of the worst, but that piece is never going to be wearable again. Even Yardi can’t rescue it.”
The armourer nodded. “That wasn’t a friendly pat upon the shoulder.”
“My first all-out Dragon battle. Yours?”
Yardi nodded pensively.
The silly question being a different, related art. Chuckling to himself, Dragon went to chat to Azania. They needed to work out a plan to get Yarimda up to a height she would never have been before. He had to admit to a longing for it just to be the two of them again. Maybe that day would come again. For now, he must be a
