by Marc Secchia
“Why dinnae ye go do some more dishes?” he suggested politely.
“It’s yer turn, son,” his mother said
Really. Keir scowled at nothing in particular. What more could he ask for in a parent other than to be undermined at the earliest possible opportunity?
He wandered into the lounge with the hatchling padding after him. Narini leaped off the kitchen table where she must have been helping Shanryssill sing over the magical herbs Elves loved so much, to give him a big leg hug and the tiny dragonet a hug about the middle.
“The kittens have been missing ye, sleepy paws,” she said. “Want to come play?”
Arami popped her head out from beneath the fort. “At last! Come on, brother, bring her over right away. We need to measure her.”
For variety’s sake, he managed to say, “Oh?”
The blonde twin announced that General Ja’axu was teaching her how to keep a record of Dragon growth. It was a matter of life and death that they recorded everything properly. Being Aramyssill and not her scatter-brained brother, she had been careful to measure everything about the hatchling right after her birth so she could report that her vital measurements had been thirty-seven inches in total length, seven inches tall at the shoulder when crouching, eleven inches tall when standing, and that her talons had measured a teensy half an inch when extended. Ja’axu said that these were the key measurements for any growing hatchling and therefore she, Arami, would keep proper and accurate records for posterior’s sake.
“That’s ‘posterity,’ dear one,” Kalar corrected with a gurgle of laughter. “This is a posterior.”
Thankfully his gesture was hidden from the five anna-old, but Keir was certain he did something socially unacceptable to his wife’s behind because she promptly stood up on her chair and set about smooching her husband breathless.
“Parents, yuck,” the twins chorused.
“Cannae take them anywhere,” Keir agreed, smiling. “Can I help, Arami?”
“I’ve got the General as my helper,” she said.
The serious business of measuring an energetic, mischievous hatchling was far from an easy task, however. As if this extra-long sleep had energised her in ways no-one quite understood, she perked up and decided that playtime was at paw. The leather ball Ja’axu had brought over the week before, imagining that a young Dragon would find it irresistible, finally did have its moment in the sunshine with Miss Bright Scales and two kittens chasing it all over the kitchen and lounge for the better part of an hour. After that, she abruptly became ravenous and devoured a Yak meat joint, plus bones, in record time. It was half her size.
Guess they’d be keeping the King’s Provisioner in business after all.
He had no clue where she packed it all, but as far as feats of guzzling went – impressive. Keir had a handful of dried fruit and a slice of bread. Modesty personified.
Ja’axu joined them at the table. Quite out of character, Arami perched upon the quarter-Giantess’ knee and talked non-stop for fifteen minutes about all the details she had noticed about the diamond hatchling, from the patterns and swirls of fire in her eyes to her retractable talons and the fact that in the dark, the tip of her tail often sparked very slightly. She showed Keir her extremely important logbook in which she was compiling all her facts, with the help of her parents and now Ja’axu.
At last, Miss Scales suffered herself to be measured by Miss Officious Little Sister.
“Forty-three inches in length,” Arami announced. “That’s, uh … much bigger than last time. What’s forty-three minus thirty-seven, Keir?”
“Six,” he said.
“Six inches already,” Arami agreed. “Gorwing fast, is she now’t?”
“A good pace,” the Giantess rumbled.
She wrote this down with Ja’axu’s help, while he mentally figured out that meant she must be growing a little faster than an inch and a half in length each week. He doubted the measure slightly since she gave every appearance of being made of equal parts elastic, diamond and lightning, but there it was. The crouching height now touched eleven inches and her standing height, sixteen. These dimensions lent her a longer, sleeker profile than any hound, and hearkened to the huntress she would surely become.
The massive, eight-foot-seven Giantess leaned over the tiny half Elf, patiently helping her to record the details. It warmed his heart to see them together. Such a shame Ja’axu had never had her own children. For a crusty warrior, she certainly had a soft spot for the little ones.
Getting the talons out proved a challenge. Once she worked out what they wanted, the hatchling made no bones about making their task as difficult as possible. There was ball tossing, wrestling, laughing, chasing about the lounge and hiding in various rooms of the house before he finally corralled her and worked out that by tickling the underside of her paw, he could make her talons extend involuntarily.
Arami crowed, “Nice brothering, Keir! We got her.”
“Is brothering even a word?” Rhyl asked. Trust her to chase after the important details.
“Closely related to cousining,” he told her archly.
“Nae such thing.”
“Why dinnae ye stew over it awhile?”
Rhyl picked up a saucepan and chased him around the lounge with it until Kalar yelled that boisterous children could go play out in the snow, thank ye kindly.
Keirthynal-my-heart, the firewood stack is a little on the low side, his mother smiled.
Mother-most-subtle, it shall be as you wish.
Make it a big stack for your cheek, his father laughed. Go on, son. Leave the ladies to weave their enchantments while you go work on putting some brawn onto that rack of bones.
Thanks, Dad-most-stout.
He ducked a half-hearted clout on his way out.
* * * *
Humans think our Elvish endearments are perfectly silly and sappy, he explained to the hatchling as he pulled on his thick Ogre-hide boots. The firewood was stacked alongside the rude barn out back, beneath the eaves where it kept dry. Oh. Snowing again. What a surprise!
The hatchling appeared to understand both Elven and Human in equal measure. Did she understand words as yet, or more tone and context? She had started to name the family. Right now, her muzzle tilted as she stared quizzically up at the grey-clouded sky, watching the flakes sifting down in gentle yet insistent flurries. Azure snows, eh? Just another mystery of Tyanbran, for Olde Earth carols such as I’m Dreaming of a White Dragonmas made it clear how different a world Humanity had originated in.
Elves and Dwarves still treated Humans as refugees, sometimes.
No snoozing today. On the contrary, the hatchling acted brimful of curiosity and readiness to explore her world, which thus far, had been the inside of their house and nothing else. Did Dragons like lairs? Or was it some kind of egg instinct, a seeking after the safety of an eggshell-like space? She stepped confidently off the porch onto a foot of snow, and paused with an audible gasp.
Cold, isn’t it? Come on. Snow doesn’t bite.
She stared at her paws in amazement, picking them up one at a time to check the undersides.
We even play in it. The Winterfall had been too bitter to be outdoors much, but today promised to be far milder.
Batting at a snowflake with her paw, she trilled, Keee-irr?
That’s right. Snowflakes are beautiful – she sprang forward, jaw agape – or can be eaten, yes.
He had to laugh at the hatchling’s antics. She gambolled about his legs as he trudged the short distance up to the barn. Here, she rolled in the snow, wriggled happily at the chill sensation, and flicked out her wings to catch snowflakes on the warm surfaces. As he collected and transported armfuls of cut dry lumber to the house, she burrowed into a snowdrift in a shower of snow and vanished within.
Muffled up in their own jackets, scarves and gloves, Narini and Arami trooped outdoors to play with her while Keir sat at the kitchen table, chatting with Ja’axu, Rhyl and his parents.
“I
t’s hard to believe she’ll one day be the size of some of those behemoths I saw beneath the Dragon Kings peaks,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Only a few inches so far? Gaah. D’ye think we’re feeding her enough?”
“Give a girl a chance, Keir,” his mother admonished.
“Put her beside Santazathiar’s paws?” he said. “There’s just no comparison.”
“Keir, have ye ever considered yer the only person alive who has seen Santazathiar himself?” A fatherly finger threatened both his nose and his mug of fragrant Elven tea. “Our fiery babe may be small, but she deserves our respect all the same – and ye can just stuff that into yer pipe and smoke it, lad. Respect the Dragon!”
“What’s smoking around here is yer temper, Kalar,” Shanryssill put in.
“Cannae a man have a grumble in peace?”
Mom winked at him behind his father’s back. Aye. Trying to cheer him up, was she?
Selecting a few arrows from the mound that covered one end of their table, he set about checking the points and fletching one by one. Keir applied a whetstone and hammered points straight on a small anvil where needed. Fletching would have to wait until the Provisioner managed to source more good feathers. Every family in Amarinthe worked on different tasks related to the war effort, from armour and clothing repair to drying food and of course, preparing weapons and arrows. Never enough.
“The growth is likely to be proportional to size, according to the records,” Ja’axu said, with a twinkle in her dark eyes. “We Giants ken such things. So she’s touching three feet in length already, at less than one month of age. About the size of a full-blood Giant infant, as I recall.”
Rhyl made a disbelieving noise in her throat, but coloured and glanced elsewhere under Ja’axu’s scrutiny.
With a gruff chuckle, she said, “When ye see a full Giant, lass, ye’ll ken it good and proper. Keir, if she’s as different in nature as ye suspect, her growth patterns might be completely unexpected. All the more reason, therefore, to keep this diary of Arami’s up to date.”
Keir set an arrow aside for complete re-pointing. “Aye.”
“Yer job is to ken her better than anyone.”
Taking his cue from the General’s grim tone, he said, “Aye, that I will. I promise.”
“Better than any girlfriend,” Rhyl put in lightly.
“Trust me, I’ve got my hands more than full at the moment,” he grinned. “I am paying attention – for once in my life. Scaly bottom. Mmm.”
“Keir!” his mother snorted.
Ja’axu held her hands about five feet apart. “Giant bottom. Mmm.”
Everyone roared with laughter – partly in amazement at the size she suggested. Surely, an exaggeration?
Kalar turned about and posed, presenting his rear end for consideration. “Way to make a man feel inadequate, Ja’axu. How’s this?” He patted his trousers. “Decent?”
“Mmm, I like Human beef, myself,” his wife chortled, moving in with intent. Keir and Rhyl complained, but few forces in Tyanbran could stop an Elven warrior in pursuit of her man. “Just checking the goodies. Aye, just as good as the day I married ye. So … chunky. And muscly.”
“Mom, honestly! D’ye have to use adjectives?”
She winked at him. “What can I say? Someone will love ye for yer skinny posterior, one day. Me? I still fancy what I picked out. I’m an Elf, after all.”
“Wild jungle girl,” his father agreed.
“I predict Keir will be picking a wild one, too,” Rhyl teased.
“Excuse me!”
“Excused,” said she, with a wicked chuckle.
“So, how is the royal posterior?” he shot back. At that instant, his eyes lifted to spy Arami and Narini just inside the back doorway, clearly wondering what the conversation was about. Without missing a beat, he put in, “Mom, Dad, I’ll leave ye to explain. Things to do. How was the snow, girls?”
As a knock sounded at the door, he heard his mother suggest that if she knew her son at all, he’d be picking an expensive girlfriend. As if.
Ha. One thing was for certain – with a Dragon hatchling in his life, he had zero time for romance. Not happening. Not unless someone snuck up and grabbed his posterior … flinging open the door, he welcomed Jarm’s team who had brought a box of new arrowheads and a huge sack of feathers for fletching.
“Still got cord, lad?”
“Aye, we’re good for that.”
“And another 3,000 arrows or so?”
“Ooh, thank ye kindly,” he said dryly, drawing laughter from the men. “Pop them on the porch here, please.”
As the men stacked the arrows, tied in bundles of fifty, the diamond hatchling came prowling out of the gap he had left in the front door.
One of the men elbowed the other two. “Look, lads!”
One scratched his beard. “Santazathiar’s beard, it’s much smaller than I imagined.”
“But yer a beauty, by my oath,” said the eldest of the team, Xardun. He stretched out his hand. “Ye friendly, lass? She is a lass, right?”
“Aye, we’re fairly sure,” said Keir. “Go on, lass.”
After sniffing his work-scarred hand, the hatchling evidently decided his job was to scratch her exactly as she liked best. She purred, catlike, pressing up against his fingers. This would be a story for the grandchildren, he was sure. The other two men finished stacking arrows, before taking a turn at meeting the hatchling.
“Amazing,” they agreed. “Pure Dragon.”
“She’s already eating like a Dragon,” Keir chuckled. “Thanks, gents. Mauve’s warmth upon yer afternoon’s work.”
“Likewise, lad.”
Xardun said, “Mauve’s on her way out, for a change. Should be sunshine in a minute.”
Right he was. Drawing the hatchling a touch jealously into his arms, Keir returned into the house to break the excellent news. Only a few thousand more arrows. No problem.
He stroked his new companion beneath her neck. “Yer better than any sunshine, of course. Nae competition.”
She chirped, Keee-irr!
At least he knew how to turn on the charm.
* * * *
Shanryssill’s strength was still far from what she would have wanted it to be. A brief rest upon the couch turned into an afternoon nap. Rhyl strolled into town to sell their supply of medicines to the apothecary, who Keir suspected was being supported by the royal purse to purchase all of their wares. King Daryan was not only good, he was sneaky.
Sneakiness being an essential skill for successful kingship.
In other sneakily royal news, Prince Zyran concocted yet another flimsy excuse to swing by for a cup of Elven tea that afternoon. Motivation, eh?
“Heard yer taking on half the kingdom’s stock,” he chuckled. “I’m a wizard with arrowheads.”
True enough. Keir said, “Let’s put ye to work, yer Highness. Mind yer soft royal palms on these rough arrow shafts and sharp points.”
He held up a palm heavily calloused by sword training. “Alas, that soul blade does love his creature comforts. Mæ’iêti is a blade of high standards – but I’ll tell ye something for now’t, he does ken his combat forms. Got me sweating up a storm, he has. I’ll admit, it is a teensy bit like cheating when yer blade can force ye into the right forms and paths.”
Smiling across the table at his girlfriend, he said, “How are all things Rhyllaryssill?”
“All the better for seeing ye, my Prince,” she flirted. “How’s yer Elven?”
“Badly in need of polishing. What’s the word for kiss?”
“Ooh, we can definitely work on that!”
Keir said, Kiss kissy kissing Prince go kiss a Yak …
Rhyl squealed with laughter.
Zyran pulled him into a mock headlock. “I’ve no idea what ye just said, but I trust it was as rude as always?”
“Guilty.”
They both glanced up as Shanryssill stirred and moaned softly. Kalar … oh …
He rushed to her s
ide. Shanryssill-my-soul, what is it? What’s wrong?
Oh … I … oh, thank Santazathiar it was only a nightmare! Winding her arms about his neck, she buried her face against the mounded muscles of his shoulders. You’re here, right? This is real?
So haunted her voice, Keir shivered. Had she dreamed about death? Something about fading away forever?
As real as a Dragon hatchling playing with sunbeams. Dad touched her cheek fondly; the hatchling watched them with all her concentration, her tiny nostrils dilating as if to scent their emotions. You’re awake, my precious one. Nothing can keep us apart anymore.
Ugh, what a beastly nightmare. It’s alright, little one. You go play.
The hatchling paused beside the couch, before rising onto her hind legs to mimic Kalar’s gesture with her forepaw. When her talons involuntarily extended, she whipped her paw away at once. Mrrr-krrr … shrrr?
I really am fine, darling. Thank you for caring.
Reaching out, Shanryssill stroked her wings lightly and the pair shared a long, significant look. Incredible how distinct her caring behaviours already made plain the feelings that seethed beneath. His mother’s eyes gleamed from within for a second, and she rubbed her arms as if a frisson of magic had played through her body. Then, the hatchling’s attention returned to a golden-mauve beam of sunlight which had crept between a crack in the heavy drapes. Dreamily, she waved her paw amongst the dust motes, stirring them as her fire-in-fire pupils whirled, focussing and refocussing on the phenomenon.
Keir watched her for a while, thinking that she was changing already. If her behaviour was anything to judge by, today marked a turning toward engaging more with the outside world. She had scarcely napped and already the hour approached evening. Darkness would come soon.
His own hand swept through the golden motes, before he mimicked the Sign gesture Sarimi had taught him. “Dragon. Yer thinking about flying?”
Keee-irr?
“Aye. Flying.” His hands swooped again. “That’s what yer made for. Only, I pray that like these motes playing here, there will be others like ye to fly with. Ye cannae be the only one.”
Turning, her eyes picked up the rich golden mauve colours of the sunset, and stole him away to a place beyond imagination.