by Marc Secchia
The hatchling grew a mere two inches in her first week of life. For his part, Kalar ate like a starving Dragon. Thanks to Rhyl’s careful dietary planning and discreet help from the castle kitchens, his father was tightening his belt at the same time as his shirts were beginning to bulge at the shoulder seams. Shanryssill filled out almost before their eyes.
The new annum also brought a change in the weather. The week-long blizzards cleared up in favour of snappish overnight storms that dumped their loads of azure snow before bustling on, and the temperatures rose to a few degrees below freezing rather than the brutally bitter nadir they had experienced before Dragonmas.
Odd. Could the atrocious weather have presaged his Dragon’s arrival?
Each morn, after the kittens and the hatchling had been fed and there had been a high-spirited playtime, Keir’s job was to get his sisters ready and over to school. It was not a long walk across town, but since the King’s warning, his parents had decided they should be escorted morning and afternoon. So it was coats, hats and boots, and lunch in the bags, while the hatchling commenced her own routine of complaining, using her developing array of sounds to make her displeasure clear. He soon worked out that Her Scaly Highness required to be placed in his backpack and to be carried along for the walk. She snoozed the time away, however, enjoying the dark, cosy space in a manner that made him suspect it had become a substitute for her egg. Maybe her kind kept their young very close, perhaps even in some kind of pouch or carrying apparatus?
Back home, father instructed him, Rhyl and Shanryssill in hand-to-hand and dagger combat, and then his mother took over to correct the more inept or inaccurate ideas he had about using his leaf-blades.
There came a day he noticed his hatchling stalking the kittens – the furry rascals had indeed been known to do the same – and finally, the moment he had dreaded most arrived, when the stalking game turned nasty and a whirlwind of fury rolled beneath the kitchen table, hissing, spitting and snarling as if thirty animals were embroiled in all-out warfare and not just three.
Keir separated kittens and dragonet at the cost of a bite to his thumb, and then told them all off at a decent volume. “Ye are all friends! Claws in! There will be nae biting, and definitely, nae eating one of another! D’ye understand? Ye play nice or ye dinnae get to play together at all! Kittens are now’t for eating! Dragons’ wings are now’t for shredding or clawing! We behave ourselves in this family, or there will be serious consequences!”
Gracious, he sounded like his father.
The kittens sat on the table and sulked. The hatchling gazed at him in open astonishment. Was this the first time he had been angry with her? She definitely knew she had done wrong, because her tail and wings drooped, and the fires in her eyes were as dark as he had ever seen them.
Placing one hand upon her head and pointing to the kittens with the other, Keir said clearly, “Nae.”
She nuzzled his hand, a peace offering.
The fires drew him in, but this time, it was different. He felt less lost and more self-aware, and at the same time, more of her as a distinct personality. Fierce. Fiery. Noble. Feminine. Playful. Lethal and loyal and secure in the knowledge that she was loved.
I had not realised love was so important to you, he whispered in her ear.
How had he not really noticed her ears before? They were sharp little nubbins upon the edges of her skull. Had they not always been flat, folded into indentations in the skull that gave every indication of being designed to fit perhaps for protection or streamlining? More recently, when she acted most alert, the ears had begun to come alive. They pricked forward, clearly orienting upon his voice, giving her a curious, intelligent expression.
Oh. Four ears? Two up top and two oriented more to the sides. Remarkable. Was that intended to give her a greater auditory range? They twizzled and twitched independently of one another as she reacted to different sounds in her environment.
I’m not angry with you. I was just scared about the kittens, alright? They belong to my sisters and I would not want to see them harmed. They’re family.
Kaleidoscopic fires swirled within and without his soul.
Then, very clearly, she chirped, Keee-irr?
* * * *
Keir was getting used to being woken up by a cunning paw creeping beneath his neck, say, or a waft of cold air upon his feet as a scaly rascal burrowed in beneath his blankets. Dragons did not understand the concept of personal space. Nor his increasingly acute need for a decent, undisturbed night’s sleep. Oftentimes she kneaded his spine with her paws while she was dreaming. Rhyl said that the dark smudges beneath his eyes made him look like a rogue or a desperado. His father clapped him upon the back and told him he looked like a first-time parent.
Not appreciated, Dad!
What he was not used to, was being woken two hours before dawn by a deafening belch. Nor was it just any average belch. It was an extended production of impressive magnificence considering the proportions of the body from which it originated, and it reeked of burned wet leather. Two minutes of ceaseless squirming later, the four-pawed scoundrel did it again. An absolute belter, right in his left ear. It stank!
“Gaah, honestly?” Keir complained, trying to push her off.
Apparently this constituted the most despicable form of parental abandonment imaginable, because she started trilling at once, Keee-irr. Keee-irr. Keee-irr!
Anyone would think the world had just ended. Keee-irr!
“Ye stink, ye little – of old leather …” Realisation slowly tried to percolate into his sleep-addled brain, but it was hard going. Leather. Something about leather. What was it … turning over, he peered at her mouth. “Have ye been eating – aye, here we go. Nice one, lizard breath.”
He spied a scrap of leather stuck between her fangs. Boot leather.
Oh no. Not. Good.
“Boot leather!” he yelped.
“Keir,” his father ground out from the other side of the wooden wall that separated their rooms. “Keep it down to a dull roar, would ye, lad?”
“Trying, Dad.”
The white mite gave him her best coy, innocent look. All huge fiery eyes that threatened to swallow him alive with their hypnotic intensity, head tilted slightly askance, ever so appealing. How was he supposed to be able to resist such a brazen overload of cuteness? Exactly how arrived one second later as her distended stomach voiced a gurgle so violent it sounded like a troop of River Trolls marching off to war – as he imagined they would sound, anyways. The hatchling twizzled her neck to peer at her belly in evident startlement. Keir ducked. When nothing too disgusting hurtled his way, he rose warily, to be greeted by another, more genteel belch.
“Alright, ye stinky-breathed blighter. Let’s go discover what destruction ye have caused this time.”
He feared the worst. Following his return from the war, his father had to have new boots made to measure by the cobbler, raised on the right side to accommodate his inch-shorter leg and correct his awkward gait. The living room oil lamp was left on low for the twins’ sake. Narini was scared of the dark. By that sallow light, he saw that his own boots stood beside the door, untouched. His father’s spare pair, which had been headed to the cobbler for re-soling, stood alongside – one and a third boots, give or take. It was quite clear that the left boot had been used as a plaything. A chew toy. It had been extensively gnawed upon by a hatchling possessed of a set of razor fangs, a feisty attitude and a ridiculous overabundance of energy at completely the wrong hour of the night.
“Och nae!” Keir groaned.
She slunk in behind him, wingtips drooping, head meekly lowered.
“Ye are now’t to be eating my father’s boots, ye hear me? Ever! What d’ye have to say for yerself, young lady?”
Buuuuuurrrrp!
“Well, whose fault is that, then, Miss sore tummy? Boots?” he pointed angrily, his finger actually quivering with rage. Not unimpressive. “Nae! Under nae circumstances will ye –”
Keee-i
rr?
“Nae. Bad girl! Absolutely off limits.”
Ugh. Another memorable parenting failure on his part. Funny how the last few weeks had seen his respect for all parents surpass the breadth and height of the entire Amarinthian Bulwark.
No saving either boot, mind. The right boot’s entire toe had been chewed off, after which she must have placed it back in exactly the same position in a futile attempt to hide the misdeed. Clearly, this was a sign of intelligence misapplied as naughtiness, for she had known all along she was doing wrong. Hmm. So, did that make naughtiness a hallmark of high intellect? Somehow, he did not think this argument would fly with his parents.
A massive sloshing sound emanating from the tiny Dragon’s stomach made him swing around. What? There she stood, all four paws stiffly planted, talons dug into the hardwood floors, her diaphragm and belly pulsating in powerful waves. Uh-oh. The strain writ upon her face was worse than constipation. Hilariously worse. Her eyes physically bulged with the pressure build-up. Then, with a sound like a drainpipe emptying at high speed, a brownish-black blob erupted from her throat and shot right across the living room, slapping wetly against the dry food storage cupboard opposite. At the same time, the recoil tore the hatchling loose from her moorings and slammed her against the wall in the opposite direction. She gave a shrill cry of pain and frustration.
“Santaclaws’ own grief, son, would ye shut her up? Some of us are trying to sleep around here!”
“Doing my best, Dad.”
“How’s about doing yer other best, then?”
Hilarious.
He checked the dragonet over quickly, and then eyed up the steaming splodge of unmentionable stomach contents. Sigh. That looked as nasty as it smelled. When Keir came back inside with the mop and leather bucket, it was to find the dragonet cheerfully cleaning up the regurgitation for him. Munch, munch, swallow, together with generally satisfied sound effects.
Delightful.
Keee-irr? she checked that he was present. Five thousand percent cutesiness all over again. Irresistible. Honestly. He must have the willpower of the average dishrag.
He knelt to scratch her warm, silky scales. The feel of her was amazing. Armoured silk was the best he could describe the texture. It was almost soft, like – slurp! She licked him happily on the lips with a tongue slathered in half-digested leather boot vomit.
* * * *
Prince Zyran’s cloak swirled around his tall, elegantly attired frame as he pressed the front door closed behind him. Slyly, from behind the battered armchair which had replaced the one her birth had blasted into kindling, the hatchling bellied toward the familiar visitor, stalking the nearest corner of that cloak. Low to the floor like a snow leopard hunting a banded rock deer. Stealthy. Unblinking focus. Her white tail twitched involuntarily, but the Prince did not appear to notice the scraping sound, calling out a cheerful greeting to the family.
A paw snuck forward.
Zyran’s wide stride took him across to the kitchen area to bow elegantly over Shanryssill’s loam-crusted hand, narrowly avoiding the wicked snag of talon in fabric. “Ma’am, what a pleasure to see ye well,” the fourth Prince of the realm said. “Better again today?”
“Aye, that I am, ye charmer.”
Keir eyeballed his charge as she wobbled after the Prince, fully intent upon wreaking mischief upon that irresistibly waving cloak.
“Rhyl is –”
“Bathing,” she said, as the Prince glanced over at the twins, distracted by a fort being built in the corner of the living room. Disappearing inside for a rambunctious play session with the highly energetic five anna-old twins was far from beneath the royal dignity, if he knew anything about his friend at all.
Keir whipped the cloak off Zyran’s shoulders in the nick of time. Oh, nice crawly – whack! His palm smacked the royal behind, flush upon a silk-spider which had been lurking there.
Zyran leaped nearly a yard into the air. “What? Did ye just –” he reddened royally, before glaring at Keir. “Ye rascal!”
“Me? Spider.” He held his palm out, splattered with green gunk and hairy body parts. “Well, firmly in the past tense. Poisonous too, I’ll have ye ken.”
The Prince made a face. “That’s plastered all over the seat of my trousers? Thanks.”
His mother giggled merrily, like a young Elfmaiden. “Well, in my courting days, my Prince, I might also have succumbed to the temptation of slapping a princely behind. We Elves are much more tactile than ye Humans.”
“Apart from kissing on the lips,” he said.
“Och aye, yet it dinnae faze ye, nor she,” his mother observed archly.
“Ma’am!” Zyran yelped, his eyes popping wide. “I did now’t come here to be so – well, alright, then. Part of the family?”
“Ye grow more perceptive by the day.”
The Prince favoured Shanryssill’s trouble-stirring with a mildly disrespectful snort. “Huh. How’s the fletching coming on, Keir? Royal inspection.”
Putting on a thick mountains accent, he slurred, “Yer Mighty Highness, I’s so very honoured to have ye inspect my work – hey! Catch that thieving pest!”
The dragonet absconded with one of his freshly fletched arrows in her mouth. She growled mock-ferociously at the Prince as he pursued her across the room. After grabbing and missing several times, he succeeded in catching the arrow and started a tug-of-war with her. The scallywag dug in with all four paws, snarling between her clenched teeth as she fought his hand.
“She’s strong,” Zyran observed.
She growled up a small storm, tugging this way and that and shaking her head in an attempt to dislodge the arrow. The Prince played along, giving her plenty of resistance and encouraging her efforts. Soon, Keir noticed the room becoming lighter, and he turned from his work in surprise. The tiny beauty was aglow, her scales radiant, her diamond colour coming alive into her wings – not completely, but enough that he could discern the darker lines of blood vessels like the capillaries of leaves in the soft surfaces of her baby wing membranes – and even her eyes changed colour, modulating somehow between vermilion hues at the edges to brilliant white in the pupils. Her snarling had become positively ferocious, her draconic fury swelling …
Alarm speared into his gut. “Uh, Zyran …”
“Come on, ye beauty. Show us those fierce Dragon fangs!” his friend urged, blithely unaware of the danger. “Grr!”
Kerack! A brilliant flash lit up the family living room.
He snatched back his hand. “Ouch!”
The hatchling stood with the smoking remains of the arrow held crosswise between her fangs, shaken by whatever she had done. She dropped the arrow meekly at Zyran’s feet. Krrr-zrrr?
“All good, little one.” Dropping to one knee, he said, “I gather yer anger manifests as lightning?”
He made to touch her back, but another spark leaped between them. The hatchling glared at her own scales as if they had betrayed her, eyes narrowed and fangs bared.
The Prince reached out again. “Dinnae ye worry about that. Nae harm’s been done. Keir, it’s the strangest thing. I’ve never heard of this kind of power amongst Dragons. The legends talk about fire, aye, and plenty of it. Dragons sweep their fiery breath across ranks of the enemy, or shape a fireball with their tongue and spit it out to destroy a siege weapon. That’s what Dragons do. I’ve never read about a Dragon which could draw the power of lightning to herself – I mean, imagine the raw power of a lightning bolt channelled through her body? Imagine what a weapon that would be?”
Keir sucked in his lips sharply.
“Moreover, I was just thinking,” he added in pensive tones, “that this corroborates everything about what ye said ye saw in that weird storm. Great story, by the way.”
“It wasn’t a –”
“Got ye. Totally believable, my friend. Totally. It’s now’t only that she draws the power of lightning to herself. In some way we dinnae understand, I think, she is lightning. It’s like it rises in her
body when she’s angry, and she cannae help it, maybe. Or maybe she will learn to control it as she grows up – but, dinnae ye ken what I mean? It’s like –”
“Like she’s a whole different type of Dragon,” Keir interjected softly.
He and his best friend stared at each other.
Rubbing her spine, but not removing his eyes from the half Elf, Zyran added, “Where d’ye think her parents are, right now? I mean, on the one hand it’s like she was given to ye for a purpose that we simply cannae fathom, but on the other …”
Keir recalled the mighty manifestation, the draconic mouth, the immensity of that unnatural, hot Winterfall’s storm which must have generated the ball of lightning which had passed into the Mother Tree, and blasted out again in the form of a jewelled egg. Had the Sacred Tree perished that day? What if her parents were searching for her? Missing her? What if one day they would descend in an almighty tempest to punish this person who had dared to steal their precious egg from them, and to decimate the civilisation from which the perfidious thief hailed?
Drakabis Abyss itself might better tear open within his heart.
Picking up the luminous hatchling, Zyran walked over to him. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to make a fine, bronzed Elf take on a pasty version of Human colouration.”
She purred at him from within the Prince’s arms, her tone somehow speaking to his fears. She understood? Nay, now was his imagination working overtime. Daily, this tiny creature impressed him with her perceptiveness and ability to empathise with Human emotions. Was this her gift? An instinct that read tone, body language, perhaps even subtle physiological signals?