The Dragon's Gift

by Anastasia Chase

  Dresses. Tons and tons of dresses. They were rooting through them, looking for ones that would fit. Even Beverly, the eldest of the bunch, looked smitten with the “treasure trove” they had before them.

  Jen waited until they were done picking through everything and had a number of dresses draped over their arms before taking a turn.

  “Are you all right? You look a little spooked.” Samantha continued folding her clothing so she could carry them easily.

  “It’s nothing,” she replied a little too quickly. She didn’t want to relay what happened in the bathroom, especially since she couldn’t be sure who was still on her side or not.

  “Where’d you guys get all these?”

  “They brought them to us. We asked and they said they were going to give them to us anyway. Something about a preparation.”

  “Oh.” Jen recalled her earlier conversation with Torfan. “There’s something you guys should know…”

  “They’re going to do what?!” Julie exclaimed. She was dressed as if she’d just left an aerobics class.

  “Breeding. We’re being traded to them so they can perpetuate their species or something,” Jen replied. Even hearing the same words coming out of her mouth, it was hard to believe.

  “So we’re slaves?” Beverly rubbed at her tired eyes, smearing the already-smudged blue eyeshadow across her face even more.

  She looked the least well-rested out of them and her hair was a mess. Even Jen was surprised that someone of her age managed to keep up with them during the chase.

  “No, fuck that. I’m not doing that.”

  Wendy got to her feet and stumbled to the door. No one knew how long she’d been awake, but at least her temperament hadn’t changed.

  Samantha was the one to grab her arm and drag her back; Jen understood her anger and would have preferred seeing her giving the aliens a piece of her mind.

  “‘Wendy, think.” Samantha dragged her back to the ground where everyone sat in a circle. “Even if we get out of here, we have no way of getting back home.”

  “There’s no home left, Sam, but anywhere is better than being some f–”

  Julie slapped her hand over Wendy’s mouth.

  “Okay, I think that’s enough swearing for one day. How about we come up with a plan instead?”

  “Oh, sure. What great plan could we possibly come up with when we’re out in the middle of nowhere, have no idea how any of this technology works, or have any clue where we could go? We don’t even know what these…?” Julie looked at Jen.

  “Dragons.”

  Everyone shook their head in disbelief.

  “You’re kidding…”

  “What these dragons are like. These guys might be afraid of them but if they need us so badly, maybe we have the upper hand in this. I mean, we’ve all closed our legs for a man until we’ve gotten what we wanted, right?”

  “You don’t have to put it like that!” Beverly gasped with a hand to her chest.

  “It’s not like I’m lying.”

  A few of the women eventually acquiesced to Julie’s statement with light nods.

  “Or we could just end up pissing them off and they kill us.” Wendy shoved the hand away, looking ticked.

  “After we came all this way? That would be a waste of everyone’s time.”

  “So is that really the plan we’re going with? Cuckolding them?”

  They looked around at each other for a few minutes and shrugged. What else could they do? It was the best semblance of a plan they’d come up with so far.

  A knocking at the door halted their conversation. The last thing they needed was the aliens learning they were making plans. It was better to appear like the hapless, helpless does for “slaughter” the aliens wanted them to be.

  “Come in.”

  In came Torfan, as well as three other aliens with arms laden with trays of food. The smell was intoxicating and all of the women’s stomachs turned at the same time. Torfan watched with mild amusement as they stuffed their faces.

  They didn’t seem to care about where it came from or what it was made of. It all smelled too good to ignore and their mouths were too full to pepper the alien with questions.

  The table was a mess by the time they were done and they were sprawled across the ground in satisfaction. Jen couldn’t remember the last time she'd eaten that well.

  The meal, however, wasn’t enough to forgive him. Torfan was going to have to do so much more than giving her a belly full of food to make up for what he had taken from her.

  “I see you’ve all enjoyed the meal. We have an hour left until we dock, and I’d like you all to be clean and dressed by then.”

  “You know, for keeping us like prisoners,” Wendy spoke around a drumstick of some kind in her mouth, “you’re treating us pretty well.”

  “Of course. If you’re happy, our masters will be happy and that means a bountiful trade.”

  “Ah, yes. Of course. Silly me to think you’d do this out of the kindness of your heart.” Wendy rolled her eyes and continued working on the last of her meal.

  “If you’re quite through with the sarcasm, you have one hour. No room for tardiness.” Torfan folded his hands behind his back and left.

  One by one, they picked themselves up off the floor, wiped their greasy hands on their clothing, and left with their dresses. Only Wendy and Julie remained.

  “You go on, Julie. There’s something I have to say to her.” She touched at her tender throat, where the beginning of bruises started to appear.

  “Leave it, Wendy.” Julie grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door. “We have more important things to do.”

  “Trust me, this is important.”

  “Wendy.”

  “Two seconds.” She managed to wrench her arm out of the other’s grip and moved in until her nose almost touched Jen’s.

  “You watch your back. You try that kind of bullshit again, and I promise you, it’s going to be you on the ground with my hands around your neck.”

  Jen didn’t back down. Wendy’s temper didn’t scare her one bit; she’d faced worse, scarier things. The spite of one woman wasn’t going to make her cower in a corner.

  Wendy shoved her once more before backing off and retreating to her own room, grabbing what was left of the dresses on the floor and dragging them behind her. Julie looked from the door to Jen and back again.

  “I don’t think she likes you,” she offered.

  “I don’t really care. I’m not here to apologize or make friends with her if she’s going to be like this.” Jen sat on her bed with a few dresses in hand, looking over the patterns and colors.

  She was being dressed up for show, paraded around in a pretty dress so she could be more enticing for these “masters.”

  She threw the dresses down in disgust and fell back against the bed. At least it was somewhat soft.

  “It’s funny, huh. We all woke up this morning to a miracle and now we’re in the middle of hell.”

  “Hell. I wouldn’t go that far, but the situation is not great.”

  “Not great? You want to be a breeder the rest of your life?” Jen turned onto her side and dragged a pillow over her head.

  “No. I don’t even like men.”

  “They can suck sometimes–”

  “No, I mean I’m not attracted to them.”

  Oh. Oh.

  “If they are as benevolent as these aliens say they are, then maybe they’ll find something else to do. Not breeding.”

  “Babysitter, then. That doesn’t sound much better.”

  “Better than being in the vacuum of space, I’m sure.”

  “I’d take that any day.” Julie sighed and gathered up her things to have a shower before it was time. “See you in a few, princess.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Jen called out after her before the door closed. Alone, the room was silent once more, leaving her to her thoughts.

  She felt the ship change beneath her, the hum of the engines do
ing something different. Like the feeling she got when a plane was landing. That likely meant they were much closer to this planet now and would be docking soon.

  That didn’t give her a lot of time to get ready.

  Chapter 6

  Jen and the others were crowded around the small porthole as the ship landed, pushing and shoving each other out of the way so they could all see.

  For a place that was destined to be their new home serving as breeders, it was actually quite beautiful.

  Everything was white and reflective, almost like it had been constructed out of fine porcelain. Large cityscapes cut through the horizon with their tall spires rising to meet the clouds, much larger than the city they’d left behind. Outside the areas of civilizations were tremendous trees just as tall as buildings. Bright, rich trees full of flowers with unusually green skies.

  “Look.” Beverly pointed, forcing everyone to scramble to the small window once more. “Out there, near that mountain range.”

  “I think those are birds,” Wendy replied with a snort of disgust.

  “Birds don’t fly like that,” Beverly returned, tugging on one of her sleeves. The darn thing kept falling off her shoulder.

  Jen managed to squeeze in a look; whatever those silhouettes were, she was convinced weren’t birds. She couldn’t tell what they were, nor did she want to start harboring guesses.

  Because dragons definitely weren’t real. These were just people, not the large, magnificent dragons Torfan had described.

  “I hope you ladies are ready,” came a quiet voice from behind them, and they turned to find another of Torfan’s men.

  He was small, one of the more polite ones, definitely without any scars. He hadn’t even been equipped with a weapon.

  “No, but we don’t have a choice, do we?” Samantha said, squaring her shoulders back.

  “What she means is thank you,” Julie interjected with a smile. “Thank you, uh...”

  “Snalt.” He seemed to beam at the fact that others were interested in his name.

  “Thank you, Snalt. Is there anything else we should do to get ready?”

  A greyish-pink tongue peeked out of the corner of his mouth as he counted silently on his digits and mumbled to himself.

  “Nope, that seems to be everything. You’re going to love it here. I mean, I wish I could live here.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “The masters won’t let us. A war happened a long time ago, decimated both our numbers. It was agreed we would keep to ourselves, but...” Snalt shrugged, unsure as to whether he should be telling them all of this.

  “But?”

  “But it’s getting more difficult to thrive when they’re hogging all the resources for themselves. Sure, they live thousands of years and they’re smarter than us, but they can’t just go anywhere and take what they want.”

  “Why? You did,” Jen mumbled under her breath. Julie elbowed her hard in the side to keep her quiet.

  Thankfully, Snalt hadn’t heard her.

  “So we made another deal. We trade with them, for whatever we need. We give them women, they give us whatever we ask for. Ships, fuel, weapons.”

  “You give them women. For guns.”

  “Wendy.”

  “No, I want to understand all this bullcrap! We’re just a commodity to you?! Meat you can trade to make your lives easier?”

  “She doesn’t mean that.” Julie tried to smother Wendy’s mouth but wasn’t strong enough.

  “Yes I do! This is insane!”

  She stormed by them into the hallway, her hands thrown up in the air. There was very little anyone could do to reign her in once she got started.

  “Snalt only does what he’s told to do. If you want someone to blame, it’s Torfan. Or the masters. But that would make them very upset and we wouldn’t like that, please.”

  He was obviously the runt amongst the crew: he was the smallest and the skinniest they’d seen so far.

  “Snalt, what can you tell us about how this works? With Torfan?”

  “Snalt already said. We give them what they ask, they give us what we ask, we leave. How is this so hard to get into your heads?” He tapped on his temple.

  “There’s no... ceremony or order to how this happens?”

  “Oh, there’s always ceremony. Big crowds, lots of people, music. It’s big event, they’re always happy to see us.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing else. Why you so interested in this, anyway? It’s not like any of you have to play a part. Just look pretty and smile.”

  Five faces neared, glaring. Snalt quickly excused himself before he found out why they were mad.

  “If what he says is right, maybe we won’t have the chance to pull anything off.” Samantha rested her chin in her hand, looking a little defeated.

  “It also sounds like he doesn’t really know much, so we can’t really take his word for it.” Jen shrugged, tapping her finger against her lip.

  If Torfan had been bringing women to this place for ages, then killing her home meant there was no more supply.

  No more supply meant this contract he had going wasn’t going to work any longer.

  She smiled at the plan that was evolving in her mind.

  The ship shook with the final docking, the inside filled with echoing thumps and clangs that made it hard to think.

  Jen wondered how much longer this was going to take until it finally went all silent. She breathed a sigh of relief, though not for very long.

  “Chins up, shoulders back, smiles everyone.” Torfan and four others stormed down the hall and grabbed each woman in passing;

  Jen was cursed to be stuck with their leader, her hand enveloped in his large fist.

  They moved so quickly she didn’t have the time to protest or free herself, and it was too late by the time the door opened.

  Jen didn’t expect the fanfare that greeted them as they were paraded down the gangplank of the ship toward the ground. Each woman walked hand-in-hand with one of the aliens, dressed to the nines in their flowing robes.

  Jen mostly kept her eyes to the ground, not wanting to slip and make a spectacle of herself, and not wanting to give Torfan any attention either. But once her feet were on solid ground, her breath was taken away by the sights of the place.

  Two rows of people stood on either side of a long paved walkway with instruments in their hands. The music was beautiful, to say the least, but like nothing she had ever heard before.

  Warbled notes escaped the ends of the silvery instruments in some tune she wasn’t sure had been composed or if they were playing by ear. The musicians were dressed in elaborate clothes, so rich with color that Jen felt plain in their presence.

  Beyond the musicians were more crowds of people, cheering and throwing their hands in the air. Bright motes of color fluttered from their hands to the ground and streamers were carried in the wind. This was definitely a celebration to behold.

  Were they happy at the new arrivals or were they cheering for something else? Jen didn’t want to think about it; she wanted to stay positive.

  She ripped her hand from Torfan’s grip as she slowly made her way down the promenade. The path was long and she was eager to get to the end, to see what fate awaited her.

  He hurried to catch up with her and offered his hand once more. But she refused. He had gotten her this far but she no longer needed him. He was no longer the middleman in all of this.

  They were surrounded by even more color the further they got from the ship, and she might have spotted one or two things flying around on large wings. She casually glanced over her shoulder to see if the others were all right. They hadn’t followed her lead, their small hands still resting in the large palms of the aliens; as if they were princesses being escorted to their wedding.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  “You will not speak unless spoken to. You are here as my gift and nothing else until I am gone,” he whispered in her ear as he continued his pace behind her. A
s desperate as she was to get away from him, running wouldn’t do her much good.

  “As far as I’m concerned, Torfan, your job here is over.”

  She heard a confused snort from behind her but nothing else. She was the one pulling the strings now.

  Slowly, the music changed into something else. Something lower and more regal. That was when the crowds of people parted and the guests of other houses made themselves known.

  Jen was enraptured by the immaculately dressed people that separated the crowd. Their tall crowns and headdresses, the jeweled robes that hung off them. It was easy to see why they were so well-respected. It would be hard not to.

  “Bow your head,” came the whisper in her ear once more. This time, she acquiesced, not because she wanted to be obedient but because she needed these people on her side. Pay them the respect they wanted, and she could work her way into their good graces.

  From the group of new guests stepped a man taller than the rest with shoulder-length brown hair. Sparkling, sheer robes of blue hung from his wide shoulders, his exposed chest glistening in the sun. Jen couldn’t help the flush that washed over her face but she was hopeful no one else witnessed it.

  “Dominic Draxor, from the House of Gavro,” a voice announced from the crowd, which generated a deafening round of applause and cheers. The man only nodded his head; he seemed used to this kind of attention.

  Each had a turn of their name being called and the audience responding, until all seven had been named. Jen didn’t care to pay attention to any of it. She just wanted all this pomp and show over.

  Dominic took a step forward and gestured toward Torfan, who lowered his head in respect.

  “My lord. We come bearing the gifts you requested. Fine women these are, sharper and possessing of more wit than any others we have brought you before. They will make you fine wives.”

  Jen heard a muffled shout and turned to see Wendy’s alien companion pressing his hand to her mouth.

  “But… I do have one simple request, my lord.”

  “Speak it.”

  “I wish to keep this one for myself. She is brave, strong, and possesses a wit of the likes I have never seen before. Keep the others and let me depart with her.” Torfan gripped Jen’s arm and pulled her to his side.