She nods. “I have. My husband killed Gorgoz, and I was right there.”
Kyandros igonores that. “But afraid? No, that’s not the word. I could conquer and kill any man here in combat. If they work together, it might be different. I would win, of course. But perhaps not easily.”
“Are you,” Aurora asks, “willing to help us fight other dragons?”
He focuses on me and gives me a little smirk. “Any being that threatens to harm my love will not live long after that. Dragon or slayer.”
“Delyah,” I ask, “do we know why the weather went crazy? With the snow and all? Was it the dragons?”
She just points at Phoebe. “Ask our astronomer.”
“Yeah,” Phoebe says. “So, the sun here has gone variable. It’s a variable star. It goes through a cycle of varying intensity, and now it’s getting weaker. Colder. It sends less warmth and less light to planet Xren. You can’t really see it, but you can feel it on your skin. The sunrays are not as hot as before.”
I draw my thin dress closer around me. “Is the cold air here to stay?”
“Probably. Until the sun gets warmer. Which can happen at any time. Some stars have short cycles. Though most variable stars this small have cycles that last for years or centuries. It can also get colder. There’s no way to tell.”
“It changes nothing,” Aurora says. “We’ll keep going, whatever planet Xren throws at us. We always have.”
“Damn right!” All the girls cheer.
I glance over at Kyandros’s bemused face. “Anyway. Any chance for a girl to get married in this tribe?”
42
- Kyandros -
“Yes!” I bark.
“I do,” Mia says, much softer.
The human female in white nods and smiles. “Then I pronounce you husband and wife.”
Mia takes my hand, and we walk a few steps away while the assembled females cheer in their bright voices. The male dragon slayers remain quiet, and most of them still have their hands on their swords. It pleases me to see it.
My wife beams up at me. “We’re married!”
“About time. I wonder if it’s too late to tell you, but dragons aren’t typically patient.”
She gasps theatrically. “They’re not? Oh, if only I had known! Hey, we did this as quickly as we could. You think a wedding is something you can just throw together?”
“I have honestly never given it any thought.”
She grins. “Well, now you know.”
I bend down and take her into my arms, squeezing her. “I also know how to hug.”
“I’ve taught you well,” Mia wheezes. “A little less tightly, please… And maybe a kiss is in order now?”
“Our first kiss as a married couple,” I state as my lips find hers and I lose myself in the softness of her body, her scent, and her entire being. A dragon can sometimes look into the thoughts of another sentient, if that sentient is being very unguarded about their emotions. And now I’m picking up an overwhelming emotion from Mia. Indeed it’s so strong, it’s contagious.
“That was nice,” I sniffle as I wipe some moisture from my face.
Mia just stares at me.
“What?”
“Are you… crying?”
“I don’t know what this is,” I say truthfully. “It is a new situation. I am discovering new emotions, I think.”
She comes in and embraces me again, squeezing me as hard as she can. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I state. “And I think this fluid is an effect of that.”
“You’re the most real man I have ever met. As in, you are totally yourself at all times.”
“I wouldn’t know how to be someone else. Nor would I want to,” I say with great sincerity. “Now, Mia. My love and wife and so on. There is something I must tell you.”
She peers up at me. “You’re actually an agent from the IRS?”
“What?”
“Sorry, Kyandros. I am very happy. Ignore it. What is it?”
“Before the end, Berilona told me something that only a female can sense.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. And she sensed that you are with egg. “
She frowns. “I am… what?”
“You and I have mated repeatedly. And I have somehow fertilized an egg in you. You will gestate it until it is ready to be lain. You do know this, of course?”
“No…?”
“You don’t know about procreation?”
“Of course, I do! But humans don’t lay eggs.”
I just stare, not grasping this at all. “Surely…”
Mia smiles and puts a hand on me. “We give birth to living babies. Not eggs. We are not born from eggs that then hatch later. I’m sure you were, so how you think you have made me pregnant is beyond me.”
“Yes! That was the word she used. Pregnant.”
Mia frowns. “So, I will give birth to our child? A half dragon not born from an egg?”
“It seems strange.”
She squeezes my arm. “You don’t think she was lying?”
I think back. “Not in that situation. It was true. As far as she knew.”
Mia looks thoughtful. Then, to my relief, she smiles. “I think that’s pretty cool. Egg or baby, it’s going to be fine.”
The other women come over to say many things. They cheer and talk loudly, so I pull away a little.
I am married.
To a human.
It is the strangest thing any dragon has ever done. I will be legendary. As long as I make sure the marriage is happy and successful. I will be the envy of everyone. I have found love. They have only found cold metal. Not a warm woman.
Well, I should be the envy of everyone.
“You are to be congratulated, Kyandros.” Brax’tan comes towards me, his hand not on the sword in his belt. “You have secured a fine wife.”
“Indeed I have. As have you. Delyah is close to the laying?”
He stares. “The laying?”
“I see now that she must be carrying an egg inside her. Or something similar.”
“Oh, our women don’t lay eggs,” the chief laughs. “No, the baby comes out of them complete. There is no hatching or suchlike.”
“It comes out of them? Complete?”
“Well, I have never seen it, myself. But that is my understanding.”
I look over at Delyah. “It must be a large baby. A baby is a small human, correct?”
“Correct. Yes, it is large. And the process is… somewhat horrific, as I have had it explained to me. It comes out of the… hm. Jax’zan!”
Another slayer comes over. “Chief?”
“Please explain to Kyandros how a baby is born.”
“Oh, I… Hmm. It is… Ah. Well, in short, the entire baby comes out of the woman’s… the slit. Yes.”
I feel my eyes narrow. “The slit? Surely, that is far too small! Why, the baby must be the size of a half finger only.”
“Yes!” Brax’tan agrees. “Jax’zan, it can’t be the case. There must be some misunderstanding.”
“My Sophia has done it,” Jax’zan says. “She will soon do it again. It is very painful and terrible. A horror of the greatest magnitude, beyond anything I ever thought possible before I met her. I could barely stay conscious while it was happening. Yet she has survived. So that is how it is done, unbelievable though it seems.”
All three of us just look at the group of women for a while. So small and soft and cheerful, yet they face such a frightful experience.
“It’s remarkable,” I state. “I would never have guessed it. How can they laugh when they know about this?”
“Indeed. Women are magnificent and also incomprehensible in the extreme. Kyandros, we are a tribe of dragon slayers. But you are now married to a dragon slayer, one who has slain Berilona, and I can only assume that you don’t hold it against us. You are welcome to join our tribe.”
His words both hurt and soothe. “That is gracious. Indeed, my wife is a slayer. I never thought a fema
le could be, but Mia is showing me many new things. Brax’tan, I don’t know if I am tribesman material. Dragons and slayers are always enemies. I will have to consider it.”
“Fair enough. The offer stands. Now, I see that there has been some food prepared. I have heard that dragons don’t eat, but perhaps you’d like to watch us do it?”
“No.” I saunter away from the men, over to my wife. I have been away for too long.
She smiles up at me. “Hello, dragon.”
“Hello, slayer.”
“We’re a strange couple, aren’t we?”
“Unusual, certainly.”
She puts her hand on me. “We may have to work more at our marriage than most others. We are very different.”
“Maybe that means that we’ll have to work less at it.”
“Maybe. Sure, let’s assume that for now. So, silver dragon.”
“Little slayer?”
“We have to stay here for a little while longer. Talking and eating. But after that, maybe we can go on a honeymoon? In, say, an hour?”
“A moon?”
She laughs. “Yes. We have to go to the moon. No, actually, I don’t think I’d survive the trip. But we can go somewhere else. Aurora has an island she likes. Far away. She says we can use it. Just for a few days. Relaxing. Healing. Being together.”
“Mating?”
She grins. “You know, that’s not completely out of the question. So what do you say?”
I get ready to Change. “Let’s just go.”
She shakes her head. “The girls spent hours on this. Making the food and stuff. We have to stay for a little while. But the bride and groom are allowed to leave early.”
“Are they allowed to leave very early?”
She gives me a mysterious smile that has a peculiar female encouragement in it. “No.”
I grab her upper arm. “You have captured me once. I think it is only fair that I capture and abduct you now. I am less concerned with what is allowed and what is not. I have already told your chief that I am not tribesman material.”
She gasps, and there’s lust in her eyes.
I Change there and then, turning into my dragon form while the other women squeal and pull back. The men put their hands on their swords, and a couple of them even draw their blades.
They feel the terror I instil in them. Yes, that is appropriate. They may be slayers. But I am a dragon.
Mia climbs onto my back and I help her. Then I beat my wings once, and we’re airborne.
“Sorry, girls,” Mia yells happily and waves. “My ride is here!” She uses another language than before, but the meaning is clear. Probably it is the speech of her own planet.
The women down there wave and cheer at us, or rather at Mia. But it inspires me to give them an extra show, so I fly a circle and blow a long, blue flame as we pass. I briefly consider aiming it at the assembled slayers down there, burning them all to a crisp, seeing them all as living torches, enjoying the thrill of massacre. But only for a moment, and I aim not at the village, just into nothing.
The sounds from below and Mia’s own “yeeeahhhhhhh!” tell me that it was a good call. Maybe these people aren’t as weird as I feared.
We speed off into the setting sun.
- Are you comfortable?
“Uh-huh. So, are you able to mate in this form?”
- It would kill you.
“Are you sure?”
- No. One day we will try, if you want.
“I will want. Um. Maybe. Kyandros?”
- Yes.
“I love you.”
- I love you as well. I am astounded it took me so long to realize what I was feeling for you. Such a simple thing. It was too complicated for me. We dragons have forgotten about it. But once I got it, my life lit up and you are the sun in its center.
She sniffles. “Oh my goodness, you’re making me cry. My love, I like it when you say things like that. You’re like a jet engine.”
- Finally someone tells me. You know, I always suspected.
She punches me lightly. “Funny guy. No, I mean, sometimes you’re off and ice cold. And then right after you’re on and so freaking hot it makes me melt, like you just did.”
- Stay in one piece, beloved. Loving a dragon will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.
She laughs, a sweet and honest sound, so alive and so different from Berilona’s fakery. “You think loving a woman is going to be any easier for you?”
- I hope not. Love should be hard sometimes. Effortless things seem less valuable to us.
“Spoken like a dragon.”
- Spoken like a husband.
She clings to my neck. “Never leave me.”
I laugh, and the jungle passes by fast underneath us. I promise. You will have to determine how much a dragon’s promise is worth.
She squeezes my neck with her soft arms. “It’s worth my whole life.”
I see the lake and the island in the distance. Soon Mia and I will be alone. With her, I’m safe. So is she.
That’s all I know. That’s all I need to know.
- And mine.
© Calista Skye 2019
Epilogue
- Mia -
Kyandros sets me down, then takes off again. He really enjoys flying, and right now he does have a purpose with it.
The girls are lounging around the fire, as usual in the mornings.
“Back so soon?” Heidi asks when I sit down in my usual place. “Or you just can’t wait to brag about your wedding night?” She smiles and puts a hand on my forearm.
I smile right back. “I’ll be leaving again pretty soon. I think my wedding night will last for a couple of days more. It’s a strange astronomical phenomenon, experts tell me.”
Emilia frowns. “A wedding night that lasts for many days, huh? Do these ‘experts’ happen to have big wings, flowing tails, and silver scales?”
“Exactly! That’s the guy. See, he’s famous for his expertise already. No, I came back to apologize for taking off so abruptly. You guys cooked and everything.”
Aurora cuffs my shoulder. “Girl, you have nothing to apologize about. Some of us have been brides just like you. We know it’s all you can do to not jump your new husband right there, as soon as you’re done saying ‘I do’. Hey, you stayed longer than I did after my wedding. So, shoo. Go and enjoy your several days long wedding night. Though when it’s done, I think I would check that expert’s sources.”
I chuckle. “There is actually one more thing that I forgot to tell you guys. Actually, the most important thing of all.”
Phoebe loads up a bowl with boiling stew and hands it to me. “Is it that your husband looks really great in his kilt? Because we already know that.”
I feign surprise, playing along. “Oh, you do? Okay, good. Then there’s only one more thing. The escape ship.”
The circle of girls is suddenly very quiet.
I take a spoonful of stew and chew on it. “So, you know how dragons can tell the value of an object just by touching it? I mean, the value to them.”
“If you say so,” Caroline says. “It makes sense.”
“I had Kyandros touch the escape ship to see if it’s broken or not. And…”
They all lean in, completely focused on me.
I take a sip of water. “It’s fine, he says. It’s not broken. It’s intact. Functional. I would say Level Three cleared. He can sense that the power source is missing, which is something I never told him. But that should be easy to fix, right, Ashlynn?”
Ashlynn leans back again, the same uncertain look on her face that all the married girls have when we talk about leaving. “As far as I know, it’s a matter of pressing a button. Or the alien equivalent. So yes. Easy. How sure are we of his judgment here?”
“I’m sure of it.” I chew. “I will do as many checks as I can, of course. But I think it’s superfluous. And I think that in a pinch, we can trust the ship to hold together. In an emergency. If we have to leave. The month I talked
about may not be necessary, after all.”
“We can trust it,” Phoebe states with certainty. “They’re really good at assessing dead objects. I think this is probably the best thing that could have happened. Even if Mia had checked it thoroughly, it’s still alien tech. Now we checked it by other means. It’s like the final answer.”
“That means,” Dolly pipes up, “that we can leave right now. Right?”
All the unmarried girls smile and nod.
“It does,” Caroline agrees. “If we have to. But we stand by our original decision. When Delyah is ready to go to Bune, we all go. Assuming we find Eleanor before then. Mia checks the escape ship, maybe a little less thoroughly than before, and then I guess we take off. Those of us who want to.”
The married girls exchange glances. That will be a really hard decision to make for a lot of us.
“Eleanor,” I think out loud. “I can’t help feeling guilty. I mean, sure, she wanted to come along and there was no denying her. But I didn’t try very hard.”
“We all know Eleanor,” Aurora says. “She’s very determined. And she’s tough. This is all on her.”
“Kyandros says there were no other dragons nearby when I lost sight of her,” I say. “He claims that her disappearance had nothing to do with him. He was only focused on me. And he distracted some of the escort guys and made them harmlessly attack each other. He’s up there looking for her right now, by the way.”
“You want to postpone your honeymoon a little, until we’ve found her?” Aurora asks, toying with her crossbow. “Kyandros would be a great way to search, now that we don’t have any dactyls to ride on.”
“We will look for her every day from the air,” I calmly respond. “But I won’t let it affect my honeymoon. Eleanor knew that she was taking a risk. I will enjoy this for a few days more.”
Heidi grabs my wrist and squeezes in support. “With Kyandros as the only dragon who can Change to dragon form, we have a really good chance to win against them. I mean, if we have to fight. It we can’t just leave Xren.”
Delyah laboriously gets to her feet, supported by many hands. “We’re not leaving this planet without Eleanor. And when we leave this village for Bune, we’ll make sure there are some guys here to receive her and Brank’ox if this is where they surface. Girls, I’m done percolating and ready to pour.”
Caveman Alien’s Enemy Page 23