Yardi grumbled, “Can we not talk about going overboard, please?”
Azania said, “On that note, there’s our first draconic visitor – see, right up there? She’s sunning herself at the top of the pass.”
“Oh, well spotted,” Dragon noted. “Let’s go give her greeting.”
Taking off with care for the oldest member of the team, he flew steadily up the pass under the scrutiny of the light yellow Dragoness. No rush. Unconcerned manner. Nothing to see here but the impossibility of a Dragon carrying four Humans upon his back – nothing new under the suns, right?
The pass had to be all of eighteen thousand feet, a vertical climb of over a mile from their previous altitude. Dragon attuned his scent ability to Yarimda’s breathing and sense of herself, finding the rich desert-rose scent of Inzashu-N’shula already present. He chuckled. Well named for the rose, these Princesses. Despite that she was a youngster, he knew her for his better in matters of magic. He had the strength of Dragons to his credit, however, so between them, he was confident that they could keep the old woman safe despite the danger.
The yellow Dragoness waited until they had almost reached her altitude and started to sweep forward over the long snowbound saddle of the pass, before making a lackadaisical launch of her own. Nothing of her posture indicated aggression.
Shortly, she circled and drew alongside and a little above, assuming the position that declared she was Grinder Clan, in Draconian speak, the territorial-dominant Dragoness.
Ho, nameless Dragon, strength to your wings, she called. Are you he who carries the Princess Azania of T’nagru as … flight companion?
Her query betrayed disbelief.
Aye, that I do. I am Nameless and of no Clan. Call me Dragon. We fly to Juggernaut’s lair this day, peaceably seeking what little peace he offers those who take up his training regimens.
She chuckled smokily. I am Chalice the Grinder, Dragoness of this territory.
He genuflected with his wingtips. Strength to the Grinder Clan. Forgive me if I fly swiftly on, o Chalice, but I carry upon my back one of no less than ninety-four years beneath the suns. We must bring her quickly back down to a safer elevation.
I am well … enough, Yarimda gasped. Please make all speed, Dragon, I beg you.
Her heart rate was too quick, surely? He had no idea what it should be for Humans, but all of their pulse rates had quickened considerably as they climbed. Inzashu’s magic enwrapped the old woman, strengthening, soothing, even oxygenating the blood.
Chalice echoed the genuflection. Strength to your paw, Dragon. You will need it to face those who wait ahead. I shall fly with you, for I also am bound for Juggernaut’s lair this day.
Escort? Subtle.
Stretching his wings to their utmost now, Dragon piled on the speed. To his surprise, he began to draw ahead of the Dragoness almost immediately. She could not keep up – in a few minutes, she waved and called for him to hurry on. His struts and wing bones creaked audibly at the lateral and wind-shear forces he exerted against the thin air, while he kept so low to the barren white saddle between the peaks shading the skies to either side that several times, his tucked-up paws kicked up puffs of snow.
Beyond the saddle was a high plain just a few miles in length, dominated by extraordinary mauve clusters of boulders.
“Fairytale garden,” Azania gasped.
Not only that, but there was no snow. The rich mauve colour extended to the ground, but the smaller rocks were covered in many places with bright red, green and yellow mosses.
Incredible! Mental picture for when, if ever, he got back to his beloved artwork.
How he missed painting.
Imagine splashing this mountain scene upon a canvas, or somehow capturing the endlessly changeable billows of the ocean.
“Dragon?” Azania called, at the same instant he glanced sideways at one wing, then the other, in confusion. His wingbeat had … changed?
A Dragon’s wingbeat was like breathing. Usually, one did not need to think about it. As he lost headway slightly due to his surprise, he was forced to lightly run over the top of several boulders before he pulled his wings and thoughts toward himself and found his normal rhythm again. His old rhythm, which meant …
Ocean always rises, Yarimda said, in a strangely high-pitched voice.
Smug, he felt, but she had a right to be. Years must give people wisdom like that. The ability to place a finger precisely upon the insight he had been struggling toward.
Rest in … the oc …
Oh no!
“Yarimda!” he bellowed.
Dragon’s neck vertebrae popped as he struggled to look back at the first neck position. From the corner of his eye, he saw a sight that had always intrigued him before he learned what it truly meant. Yarimda and her granddaughter were much paler of skin than the Princesses; the colour Humans called white, but was really a kind of light tan-pink. Just as black was not black, but many variations on deep, attractive browns – speaking as a member of the brown association, of course.
Foolish beast! He snapped his mind back into order. Yarimda was blue. The kind of blue that did not go together with Human health in the slightest. Hypoxia. Somehow – oh, by his sire’s egg, it was Inzashu who had lost control of her magic!
At once, he replaced what the Princess had been doing with his own, less sophisticated and sensitive framework. Colours brightened, galvanising his magic to greater heights of effectiveness. There. Breath restored. Even the sense of their blood flow hearkened to a susurrus upon the seashore just as he remembered from the Lumis Ocean. His own was more complex, but no less reflective of the life
