The Pygmy Dragon

by Marc Secchia

  At her height, Pip could not reach over the bench and the cups, plates, candle-stands and spice shakers to place her load in the middle of the long trestle table.

  “Up with you, Pip,” laughed Shambithion, taking her elbow.

  She wobbled up onto the bench, caught her balance, and leaned over to place the platter carefully between the Masters. “Jolly fine balancing act there,” said Master Yaer, the first year History teacher, seated opposite. He had clearly had two or three too many goblets of jalti, the malted beer the Jeradians so adored.

  “Wait, student Pip,” Shambithion ordered, not relinquishing her elbow. “I shall now demonstrate the noble art of carving roast leg of ralti, Garragarra Island style, in the aid of your further education. You see, this dish is our Island’s speciality. Seventeen spices. Six herbs. Green rahlik stalks especially imported from Garragarra itself. It should tarry at least ten hours in the oven, no less, and the gravy is a secret recipe provided by none other than I. Breathe deep, student, of the very essence of divinity.”

  Shambithion’s long, spider-thin fingers wafted the scent toward her nose. Pip’s nostrils flared. Oh … heavenly! Her taste buds tingled. Her mouth became wet with saliva. The rich scent of meat burst upon her awareness as never before.

  “Now, we carve delicately toward the moist, still-red centre,” said Shambithion, warming to his task. “The secret is the thinness of the slice. See? Not dry, just a perfect pink alongside the bone. Oh, see how the meat submits to the merest touch of the blade? Next you douse it in gravy, roll it up just so with your fingertips, and–roaring rajals. You have yourself a Garragarra treat.”

  His fingers brought the morsel to her mouth. Pip’s eyes closed. Meat … the pink magnified, a hint of blood pulsing through animal veins. Her vision shimmered. Pip snapped for his hand, but her mouth was in a totally unexpected place, buried in someone’s plate of roast tubers. She froze. What had just happened?

  A clear voice shrieked in the shocked silence, “What? Who put a Dragon in my salad?”

  Maddened by the scent still titillating her nostrils, Pip swung about and buried her muzzle in the platter of meat, knocking tables, chairs and Masters flying in all directions. All was food. Food was life. Meat was the food of Dragons and nothing else mattered in the Island-World. Her mouth sizzled with wondrous tastes. Snarling with pleasure, she bolted great chunks of ralti meat, barely bothering to chew.

  “Pip! Pip!” Fingers snapped in front of her eyes. “Pay attention.”

  “Um … Nak?”

  “Will you stop guzzling Master Shambithion’s special dinner and pay attention? You are sitting on top of Mistress Mya’adara, standing on my foot, and making a perfect spectacle of yourself.”

  Pip protested, “But she’s twice my size.”

  “Not when you’re your Dragon-self, you witless lump of–”

  “Oh. Oh, great Islands.” Pip slithered off the table, trying to mind where she put her paws. She knocked over a Master behind her and snapped a bench in two. “Sorry, Nak. Sorry, everyone.”

  Islands’ sakes, hundreds of eyes were fixed upon her. Nobody dared to laugh, although the temptation must have been almost unbearable. And here came Master Kassik, to top it off, wearing that ‘I’m about to chew over that Pygmy troublemaker’ expression she knew all too well. Pip would have loved to leap off a convenient Island, just then.

  Nak cleared his throat self-importantly. “Pip, do I recall someone saying, ‘Will you behave yourself before I put your scaly backside over my knee and paddle it like the naughty little Dragon you are’?”

  The Dragon Rider was beaming around the hall, consumed by his own cleverness, when Pip coughed up her very first fireball. She could not help it. Nak’s words made her world turn white with rage. Flame rocketed toward his back. But when the smoke cleared, she saw Kassik holding a table horizontally to shield him and Nak. The Master lowered the charred wood, glaring at her.

  Pip shuffled her paws.

  His voice boomed to the rafters of the dining hall, “And that, students, is why you never insult a Dragon. Remember this lesson.” More quietly, he said to her, “Pip, please. No random transforming into Dragon form.”

  “Yes, Master Kassik.”

  “And no fireballs indoors.”

  “Yes, Master Kassik.”

  “Nak?”

  “Dreadfully sorry, Dragon-Pip.” He bowed with a typically Nak flourish, and added in a whisper, “Perfect fireball, my beauty.”

  Her claws scraped and clicked on the wooden floor as she slunk out of the dining hall, not for the first time, in disgrace.

  * * * *

  Having raided Mistress Mya’adara’s store for a used tunic top and trousers, Human-Pip wandered down to the infirmary, mired in a veritable jungle thicket of thoughts. Great. Just when she had escaped attention for a couple of days–well, five days since waking the Dragons to the Singing, her latest foray into notoriety–then she had to practically leap into Master Shambithion’s lap. She slapped her forehead with her hand. ‘Ridiculous, Pip.’

  If she wasn’t the one making trouble, then trouble had a way of following her instead.

  Rajion called her over. “Pip. Come help me with this ear infection.”

  “Cardiata, isn’t it?” said Pip.

  The Yellow fledgling flashed her fangs in a brief grin. “Ay, Onyx. I finally found out why I broke my wing primary. I felt as though I was flying through glue.”

  “Ear infections can be a beast to detect and treat,” said Rajion, with a flash of his fangs for his pun on the word ‘beast’. “Can you fetch me the green solvent wash from that shelf, Pip?”

  “How is your wing, mighty Cardiata?”

  Pip could not reach the shelf, to her annoyance. She cast about for a stool or step to use.

  “Mighty?” Cardiata snorted. “Maybe in a hundred years when I’m a Dragon Elder. Being the Dragon, of course, I persisted with my training even when I knew something was wrong. The bone’s knitting up well. Rajion says I have some healing power. How is it being a Dragon, Pip? Different?”

  “Magical,” said Pip, scrambling down from the stool with a metal pot balanced on her shoulder. “I’ve never been happier–or more terrified when Imogiel made me jump off a building, yesterday.”

  Cardiata’s expression told her that it was hard for a Dragon to imagine being frightened about leaping off a height. Fine if one was born to it–as a Pygmy girl was born to the jungle and its ways, she realised. Her Human brain insisted she had to be two leagues short of a full Island. But she sensed an inner presence. The Dragon self. It was not new. She felt as if a secret long-hidden beneath dark waters, had finally broached the surface of her consciousness. How was it being a Dragon? She shook her head. Crazy. Captivating. It gave her fiery shivers.

  Rajion growled, “Ay, any tips you can give young Pip here to help her avoid visiting my infirmary again, or randomly flying into mountains when rescuing Riders, would be appreciated. Now, scrub your arms, little one, and I’ll teach you how to find an ear infection.”

  Two hours later, wrinkling her nose at the medicinal smell of her arms and clothes, Pip returned to the first year girls’ dormitory. It was dark and quiet. She hesitated in the doorway. Odd.

  A hand reached out of the shadows and yanked her inside.

  Pip nearly leaped out of her hide–or into it–but her blushes were saved by one fact. She knew that hand. A lamp-shutter squeaked open and Maylin’s cheeky grin popped into view. She dropped something onto Pip’s head. “Party queen.”

  “Huh?”

  “SURPRISE!”

  Lights blazed from a hundred lamps, lighting a dormitory packed to the rafters with squealing, giggling students–most of the first year girls class, she realised, and not a few from the second, third and fourth years. Colourful cloth streamers had been tossed over all the beds and across the curtained windows. She smelled spicy fried sweet potato chips, and several other unfamiliar scents she could not identify.

  “Da
rn it,” cried Yaethi. “I was convinced the shock would turn her into a Dragon.”

  “What’s going on?” Pip asked, as she was led into the middle of the dorm, between the crowded bunk beds. “What’s in the barrel?”

  “Sugared Shapeshifter,” said Kaiatha.

  “Sweet, sticky Pipsqueak,” Maylin chortled.

  They were so excited. Pip eyeballed her friends suspiciously. “What have you been up to?”

  Yaethi arranged a deep blue velvet cloak across her shoulders. “Your Dragonish majesty,” she said, with an exaggerated bow. “We are gathered to celebrate your ascension to the airy spaces. We look forward to your performance of the song you have prepared for us.”

  “I’ve … what?”

  Seated on the end of the bed nearest the barrel, Casitha strummed a few chords on her harp. “The Lay of the Pygmy Dragon. Go on, Pip. You know this tune, don’t you?”

  “No. Casitha, Kaiatha–honestly, I’m a terrible singer.”

  “Earplugs,” called Maylin.

  Pip’s mouth dropped open as every girl in the dormitory began pulling bits of cloth out of their pockets and stuffing them into their ears. They knew. They had prepared for this. Well, most of them had heard her trying to sing in music class. They were nothing but a bunch of rascally, chattering monkeys. She burned with embarrassment–but it was very funny.

  “Here are the words,” said Maylin, handing her a scrap of parchment. “We’ll join in for the chorus. Where it’s written, ‘chorus’. See?”

  “I can read.”

  Her friend added, with a fake-sweet smile, “Just to make you aware that the penalty for singing poorly, is that you get to fish the sweets out of the bottom of the barrel for us.”

  Maylin sounded far too pleased with herself, Pip thought crossly. “You know I can’t reach in there.”

  “Then you might have to climb inside.”

  Pip sniffed at the top of the barrel. “What is that? It smells like–”

  “Sugar bamboo sap,” said Yaethi.

  There was a chorus of catcalls and laughter around the room. Pip had no idea that sugar bamboo sap was stored in barrels, but it did form the basis of many of the sweets enjoyed by Jeradians. She also knew that she was destined to end up in the barrel, no matter what. Her dignity might as well be tossed into a Cloudlands volcano.

  She wrinkled her nose at her friends. “When did you–you troop of rascally, chattering monkeys–arrange this?”

  “Last week,” said Maylin. “But I penned your song this evening after the salad incident, which was so inspiring, Pipsqueak, I can hardly tell you.”

  “I’ll whack her for you,” said Kaiatha, punching Maylin’s arm much more gently than Pip would have.

  Casitha plucked her harp. “You may start, Pip.”

  Pip’s eyes jumped to the first line. She sang:

  A Pygmy thief I’ve always been …

  “Hey!” Pip glared at the scroll.

  “Mind you don’t end up all sticky,” Kaiatha advised. To her amazement, the tall Fra’aniorian Islander had pulled on a falki just like Master Kassik’s. She drew herself up, affecting a deep voice. “Pip. Step into my office.” Her imitation of Kassik’s accent and mannerisms was uncanny. The girls rolled about, crying with laughter as Kaiatha, clasping her hands behind her back, declaimed, “You’re the smallest student in my school, but a Dragon-sized troublemaker! You’ve barely been here a month and you’re wearing a path to my door!”

  Pip was hard-put to sing anything after that. But she tried:

  I broke the Master Adak’s arm,

  And caused him grievous bodily harm,

  Along with a class of innocent boys,

  To whom I showed all my toys …

  Her howl of embarrassment at that line was drowned out in Maylin leading the students in raucous chorus:

  There’s a Dragon! A Dragon, a tiny Pygmy Dragon,

  She’s cute and sweet and rather neat,

  But she’s sitting in my salad.

  Oh, she’s sitting in my salad!

  After that, protestations to the contrary, Pip ended up being upended and dumped into the barrel to fish for sweets.

  Chapter 23: Fra’anior Island

  FOR the flight to Fra’anior Island, Emblazon took Pip under his wing, in the Dragon way. Three Dragons they were–Brown, Amber and Onyx, but only two of the three would carry Riders. Emblazon wore a quadruple saddle, bearing Oyda and Nak, Durithion and Kaiatha on his broad shoulders. Maylin made a snide remark about him being the ‘love seat’, which made Emblazon’s eyes whirl in amusement. Master Kassik planned to carry Casitha, Maylin and Yaethi, with a seat spare in his quadruple harness to accommodate Pip when she tired of being aloft and needed to change into her Human form again.

  As Casitha and Human-Pip checked Emblazon’s saddle fixings, the young Dragon commented, Ay, would you look at this? Oyda shines.

  Pip turned, but not in time to avoid a poke in the ribs. “Islands’ greetings, Pipsqueak,” said Oyda, bright of eye. Her smile dared Pip to comment.

  Thou, my beloved Rider.

  Emblazon’s feelings washed over Pip. It was not romantic love, but a fondness as deep as the Cloudlands, full of nuances that she could only guess at. Mutual dependency? Respect? The love of a brother-creature for his sister? There was glowing Dragon pride and no small measure of delight.

  Oyda wore figure-hugging leather Dragon Rider trousers in a light green colour, a jewelled weapons belt for her sword and daggers about her slender waist, and a filmy top of creamy Helyon silk, modestly buttoned at the throat and wrists, but which revealed enough of her very brief, Western Isles style upper-body armour to make Pip blush. Her hair gleamed like a Dragon’s wing in the early suns-shine and her gold-flecked eyes danced. Her arms had been healed enough by Rajion’s magic for the casts to be removed.

  Nak, swaggering across the remote balcony high up the school building, which Kassik had chosen for their launching place, was about to sing out a greeting when he spied Oyda.

  “With reference to our previous conversation, Pip,” said Oyda, “I’ve come to a decision.”

  “It worked,” she said dryly, pointing with her chin. “I’ll go transform, while you complete your conquest. Be nice, Oyda.”

  “Huh. You just wait till it’s your turn, Pip.”

  Poor Nak. He looked like a stunned ralti sheep, unable to speak, too amazed to deliver one of his usual poetic sallies. A bemused smile lit his face as he gazed at Oyda with unguarded fondness–and desire. Pip realised that behind the mask of the confident philanderer, as Mistress Mya’adara had labelled him, momentarily stripped bare by his wonder, lay a gentle and genuine heart. She ducked her head, discomfited.

  “Islands’ greetings, Rider Nak,” said Oyda, coyly formal. “A little early for you, isn’t it? This is what you miss every dawn.”

  “Ay,” said Nak. He was clearly heedless of anything to do with the dawn’s beauty. “That is what I miss, every dawn.”

  There was a long silence, as if two adjacent volcanoes secretly planned a simultaneous eruption. Pip, having transformed behind Emblazon’s sheltering bulk, found that her Dragon-hearing caught the leap in Oyda’s heart rate perfectly. Then, Nak spotted Pip and almost dived at her. “Pipsqueak! Gleaming up a storm there, my favourite Dragoness–after Shimmerith, naturally. Ready to fly?”

  “Ready, Rider Nak.”

  Across the balcony, Master Kassik looked on with an unexpectedly melancholy expression. Pip wondered again what weighed so heavily on his thoughts. But the huge Brown Dragon only flexed his talons in the turf. “Mount up, students. Dragon Rider class is about to take off.”

  A low chuckle rumbled from his chest.

  Despite his white hair–in Human form–Dragon-Kassik seemed younger than she had taken him to be. He was not nearly as old as Zardon, surely? His movements were lithe and his scales, less weather-beaten. Yaethi had been trying to read up on Shapeshifter Dragons. How old could they get? How did the shift or transfor
mation between their two forms work? Where did the Dragon part exist when a Shapeshifter assumed their Human form? There was little information available. Pip hoped they might find out more from the Dragon lore at Fra’anior Island.

  Just look at Nak. Climbing Emblazon’s knee behind Oyda, with her pert rear waving just inches from his nose, the experienced Dragon Rider slipped and fell on his own backside.

  Oyda smiled down at him. “Alright there, Nak?”

  “Thou treacherous distraction.” He wagged his forefinger at her.

  “Oh?”

  Emblazon said to Pip, If you can’t manage a vertical take-off as yet, little one, make your leap off the edge of the balcony. I’ll join you just as soon as Oyda and Nak stop playing.

  Playing? Pip chuckled to herself. Did Dragons see their Riders as pets?

  Walking on level ground as a Dragon was another matter. Her muscles were so powerful and springy, they kept wanting to bounce her off the ground. Master Kassik had a couple of final words for his Riders, crouching at the edge of the balcony above a two hundred-foot drop. Yaethi looked as green as a tree frog. Casitha’s hands were white-knuckled on the spine-spike ahead of her. Maylin acted relaxed, but she checked and rechecked her buckles ten times while Pip watched.

  Why not a vertical take-off? Pip’s thigh muscles knotted as she coiled her body. No Pygmy had ever had thighs like hers. She blasted forty feet into the air, so surprised that she almost forgot to beat her wings. Wow! She flipped over, dropping toward Master Kassik as he glided away from the balcony with understated elegance, giving his inexperienced Riders an easy introduction to Dragon flight. She wobbled and bumped into the Brown Dragon’s right wing.

  Pip, pay attention. Kassik’s wingtip tapped her back. Tangling with another Dragon’s wings is regarded as rude–or aggressive.

  Sorry, Master.

  Call me Kassik in my Dragon-form, he replied.