Dragonlove

by Marc Secchia

  To her surprise, after a pregnant pause, Grandion began to guffaw.

  “What?” Lia demanded, thrusting away from him. “I’m spilling my heart over your paw and you’re laughing at me? I’ll slap your witless Dragon muzzle so hard–look at me! I’m spitting sparks! I’m actually … spitting … oh, flying ralti sheep.”

  The Tourmaline Dragon’s quaking shook the cage. How tiny she felt before such a storm, vibrating with the force of his laughter like a leaf in a gale. But his mirth was far from unkind. Alien, aye, and intimidating, but resonant with a delight she suspected was founded in the presence of a Human companion. How … curious. How unbelievable; truly scandalous. What could a person do but yield to the power such moons-tides exerted upon her life–were she the yielding sort? Sweeter by far not to fight it, Hualiama realised, and that was the part that frightened and thrilled her in equal measure.

  Her head-decision had no hold on her heart. Lia writhed, at war with herself.

  “What I would not have given to see you flatten the Dragon Elders,” said Grandion, “or to be present to savour Razzior’s downfall–although we may yet regret revealing your talents to that rancorous reptile. Lia, my third heart, I do not question your courage. Nor do I question the fires I sense within you. What I question is why you’re bothering with a blind Dragon who has been trapped in this cage for three years, seven months and nine days.”

  “You question my heart,” she said, hurt.

  Grandion’s massive paw lunged in her direction, but he missed his aim by several feet. Princess. She held her breath. Lia! I can’t … see you. His huge reptilian muzzle, taller and wider than her, swivelled with a desperation she had never thought to see in a Dragon. I want to see your eye-fires, I need to …

  He spoke to the accompaniment of a deep groan originating in the lowest reaches of his chest, making the Human girl imagine the foundations of an Island groaning beneath the pressure of a tectonic shift. Lia did not know why, but she remained stubbornly unspeaking as the sound swelled. Suddenly it became elegiac, echoing the sound the Dragons had made at Amaryllion’s passing on. Ripples of organic fire chased over her skin like a crazy silver filigree. Her scalp prickled as though charged with electricity, and the entire length of her hair rose about her, before–kiiiraaack! A lightning bolt sizzled from Human to Dragon. Grandion yelped, his trigger-response propelling him a hundred feet across the chamber in an eye-blink.

  Whirling, the Dragon panted, Not your heart. Mine. I feel as though I wish to soar to the moons, only, there’s an Island chained to my tail. Words poured out of him now, taut and hot with emotion. I try to fly but it’s just dragging me down into the Cloudlands, an impossible burden. I can’t live like this, Lia. I can’t fly. I feel … I suffer …

  Call a wing a wing, Grandion, she whispered. You’re afraid.

  FEEEAAAARRRR! His roar rolled over her, and she was mute, convulsed by sorrow and the pain of a creature of enchanted Dragon fires, thus abased. He roared, Content, Human girl? A Dragon admits fear! He scorns the hollow edifice of draconic pride and admits he needs you.

  She felt ashamed.

  Raising his muzzle with a hint of the old, imperious Grandion, the Dragon added, We have words for our fires–dark-fire, light-fire, liquid-fire and star-fire … and since you came, Hualiama, both dark- and light-fires rage in my breast, so intertwined that one is the shadow of the other … unbearable sweetness, mingled with hope stolen from the abyss.

  Tenderly, Hualiama’s song enwrapped his words, stilling the Dragon:

  Let my soul take wing upon dawn’s twin fires …

  And fly to thee.

  Grandion’s claws flexed, tearing up the flagstones on the floor. His chest heaved, while his tail flicked side-to-side behind him. You sang that before, he gasped. I heard you, but did not believe. I could not.

  Grandion, I’ll help you fly. Abruptly she hurled herself across the cavern, sobbing, running, flying to him. Never again. I’ll be your eyes. You’ll be the song of the wind, one with my soul’s wings.

  Hualiama crashed into his neck, bounced off, and sprang in again, desperate to hold him, to know the clutch of his paw, to be enfolded in his draconic warmth. Grandion’s throat worked spasmodically. Laughter cascaded from the triple larynx of the Tourmaline Dragon’s throat, the thrilling low notes of a draconic trumpet, a series of whip-cracks as if chains snapped in his middle larynx, and a wild, unfettered descant warbling from the upper palate. The sound seized her legs and hurled her away in a dance of pure jubilation. Hualiama pranced about the Dragon, making triplets of leaps in which her legs spread forward and back of her like a Dragon’s wings, and her head arched backward with each jump until it touched the inside of her knee.

  Then she spun back into his paw, laughing through tears, My Dragon. My Dragonlove!

  * * * *

  “Tell me you came here with a plan,” Grandion chortled.

  All was laughter now. Shinzen’s guards must think they were moons-mad. Lia was mad, but it was a peculiar form of madness that transcended the physical structures and trappings of reality, as if she possessed the key to the fabled immortality of the Ancient Dragons. She was boundless. Caged, but free. She had fought storms and battles and Dragons for him, and brought a gift in the form of his egg-father’s unprecedented apology, apart from the treasure of herself.

  To think that as a hatchling, when he clasped this wisp in his paw, his Dragon fires had darkened with jealousy and rage. To think that a tiny, green-eyed sprite had matured into this woman he held now, clasped in the loose cage of his talons that he knew she could slip through like smoke whenever she wanted–yet she chose to remain. Hualiama was the ultimate conundrum.

  Did she know what she had called him, in the welter of her ecstasy?

  Dragonlove.

  What Dragon hoard had ever boasted such a treasure? All the softly gleaming gold and glittering jewels of the Island-World’s kingdoms could not compare. The stars sang no greater song. Panic and exaltation surged in his white-fires, the purest, most elemental expression of a Dragon’s being. The word was right. It shivered his bones.

  “Plan? What plan?” she imitated his laughter, poorly.

  And she was off again, twirling across the cavern floor as he failed to track her efforts by scent and hearing. He ached to revel in that expression of her beauty. There was such a richness of detail conveyed by Dragon sight, he felt as though a heart had been carved out of his chest by its loss. Her feet whispered upon the flagstones. Her heartbeat raced across his senses like a crazed hare, bounding up and down with her dance. Could he not share her fire? Could he not, if he yearned strongly enough, if he reached for her with every ounce of his strength …

  * * * *

  “We need an escape plan,” Hualiama growled, flexing her wing arches to display forceful irritation. “I–what’re you doing? Grandion!”

  “Get out of my mind,” squeaked the Dragon, in ridiculous soprano. Putting his paw to his ear canals, he dug about exactly like a Human rooting for ear wax.

  Lia thundered, “Grandion, stop that!”

  Only, her thunder was disturbingly mouse-like compared to what the draconic presence within her mind expected. Across from Hualiama, the real Tourmaline Dragon stood on his hind legs, wagging his finger at the impertinent Dragon–or was that Human–opposite. “You put me back this instant, you lumpen overgrown gecko, or I swear …”

  Suddenly, with a crack like an overstrained hawser snapping, Lia recoiled back into her own body and landed on her tailbone. “Roaring rajals.” After rubbing her bruised rear, she checked her arms and legs suspiciously. Grandion was doing exactly the same, humming in pleasure as he discovered wings and fangs all in good order. Hualiama wished, just once, that she could do a dint of serious damage to her draconic cellmate. Sweetly, she inquired, “What did you just do to me?”

  Grandion’s head snapped up and he swallowed fire with an audible, painful-looking gulp. “Now listen here, you interfering dragonet–”


  Lia folded her arms across her torso. “No invading my privacy.”

  For a minute or more, all she saw was smoky breath curling in and out between his fangs. The muted storm-susurrus of his belly-fires filled the cavern. Snaking toward her, jarring the ground with every step, Grandion hissed, “You forget you speak to a Dragon.”

  The icy claws of Dragon-fear seized her belly. Her chattering teeth rather spoiled the effect of her heated reply, “Well, Dragon, you forget you’re speaking to someone who can touch your soul.”

  “True wisdom lies in the fear of Dragons.”

  “I don’t like it when you … when you stalk me, all scary and predatory.”

  GGRRR! Grandion sounded incensed.

  Hualiama gave up the pretence of bravery. She should not have taunted him, as amusing a pastime as it might be. With a mind of their own, her feet conveyed her backward as the Tourmaline Dragon lumbered toward her. She pressed her shoulders against the cavern wall. Bolt? Hide? Where could she possibly run? These shivers were not delicious–or were they? The heights of adrenalin, the caged-bird thrashing of her heart as Grandion bunted her with his nose, the effervescent, crystalline magic he ignited up and down her spine …

  In and out, his breath sucked into the vast olfactory instruments that were his nostrils, drawing at the cloth of her outfit. “Mmm,” rumbled Grandion. “You smell positively Dragonish.”

  Her little arms could not possibly hold him at bay, but she made a valiant attempt. “Grandion, I’m no Dragoness? Or have you forgotten? Pestering females is your culture, not mine. Alright? Now get off before I flatten you like I flattened your father.”

  Blast the overzealous leviathan, he only purred in his tongue, A bit of growl and snap there, Lia? Most becoming. I’ll make a Dragoness of you yet.

  His intense purring made it difficult to think. Seeking firmer ground, Lia ventured, So, Grandion, how does a Dragon show regard–I mean, roost-love? We can’t exactly rub necks. Not easily, anyways. Your shell-mother and father seemed very moons-over-the-Islands together. ‘Thou, my glowing moons,’ and all that. Fluttering wingtips. And the sniffing of the neck just behind the skull-spikes–what’s that about? And Grandion–

  I’d quite forgotten the Human penchant for their own form of pestering–chirping out questions like the million water-birds of Archion Island.

  She smacked his muzzle. Better still? Were you like this with what’s-her-name?

  * * * *

  Should he regret telling Hualiama about Cerissae? Her question betrayed an unprecedented level of unhappiness–he had read her correctly, while telling his tale the previous evening. None so fiery as a Dragoness scorned, was a favourite saying around Gi’ishior. And Hualiama was quite the terror when aggravated and frustrated–as she was now.

  Not entirely, Grandion rumbled softly, and stalled. How could he explain when he did not understand himself? I’m struggling to identify appropriate behavioural boundaries in this cross-species relationship, Hualiama.

  Grr. Honesty as stiff and dry as a Dragon’s bones. What a brave Dragon he was!

  But she responded softly, Me too. I understand, Grandion. I’m sorry … I’m also sorry I’m stupidly apologising when I shouldn’t do that to a Dragon.

  Lia, Lia, Lia, he clucked. Why don’t you just be yourself?

  Be Human, do you mean?

  Now, a wash of bitterness against his senses.

  Regarding Cerissae, the truth is that she never awakened my fires as you do. Grandion swallowed, wishing he could see Lia’s eyes to judge her reaction. That’s the last word I wish to speak about that betrayer. We must work out what we do about … this, what we started by making our oaths and what moons-madness infects us now.

  Lia growled, You mean, me.

  I meant us and I said us! Again, the Tourmaline Dragon had to swallow back his fire, and the desire to nip her shoulder to make his point clear. We must help each other, my Rider, to find a way of roost-love which is pure and true. Now, Dragons sniff behind the skull-spikes because they conceal at their base certain olfactory glands, which give a Dragon their unique scent. Scent is a deep signifier of relationship. You Humans must know this–perhaps in a limited way, given the paucity of your senses. We Dragon perceive scent as a vast palette of–wait. Someone approaches.

  His ears caught a sound. To his embarrassment, a low purr throbbed from his chest as Grandion’s salivary glands kicked wildly into action. He felt Hualiama spring aside as drool spilled uncontrollably out of the side of his mouth.

  She said, What … oh. That’s a sheep.

  At that instant, the muffled bleating of an unhappy ralti sheep was the most enchanting sound he had ever heard, more evocative than starsong dappling night-dark Islands and more heartening than Qualiana crooning over his egg. Every muscle in his body seemed super-charged with power. All twenty of his talons gouged the ground as Grandion stalked toward the sound. Dimly, he heard Lia’s feet tapping along beside his left flank, but he was wholly focussed on the grating sound of a stone door pressing open, the scents of warriors on a slight breeze that entered the cavern overridden by the all-consuming musk of a terrified ralti sheep.

  Lia’s steps quickened, lighter and faster. Was she running?

  “Yaah! Get in there!” yelled a man. The dull thwack of a stick against woolly flesh came to his ears.

  Then, all became confusing. Hualiama cried out sharply. A sudden shuffle of her footwear on stone preceded a tiny flapping of wind against cloth. The Tourmaline Dragon was closing in on his prey when hiss-crack! Light flared against his damaged retinae. The sheep bolted. Lia gave another cry, low and pained, as she ricocheted off Grandion’s forepaw and crashed into his lower shinbone.

  One of the men laughed cruelly. “Found us some magic? Stupid wench.”

  Another added, “That’s why it’s called unbreakable, y’know. Don’t matter what’s inside.”

  The scent of the sheep was a whisper of the fabled hundred-year Dragonwine to Grandion’s senses, the drink prepared by Dragons from the prekki-fruit-sized grapes of Fra’anior’s rich volcanic soils in a process that combined fermentation, filtration and magic, and shared when Dragon and Dragoness began to say the ascending fire-promises to each other.

  Grandion ignored the screaming of his stomach. Lia? Are you alright?

  “Bah,” laughed one of Shinzen’s men. “Go down the river, girl. That way’s open, only you’ll find a lake full of toothfish at the bottom.” His voice diminished beneath the four foot thick stone door as it grated closed. “Plenty of bones down there.”

  He nosed the girl. Princess?

  I’m bruised and shaken–ran into a magical wall, of sorts. Nothing broken.

  Good. He shook, but for a different reason. Fires rose in his mind, threatening to steal away his sanity. Truly alright?

  A tiny hand pushed his nose. Grandion, you’re covering me in Dragon slobber. Still he hesitated, wishing to demonstrate that she mattered more than a meal, even one he could gladly have died for. Lia smiled audibly, Islands’ sakes, go put the poor animal out of its misery. Just leave me a bite.

  The Tourmaline Dragon whirled, unable to deny the craving any longer. Wool. Meat. Terror. Irresistible scents, magical sounds.

  GRRRRAAAAARRRGGGH! He charged across the chamber.

  * * * *

  Hualiama clapped her hands over her ears, but Grandion’s Dragon-thunder deafened her regardless. The Human girl knew she would never forget the spectacle of a Dragon attacking his prey. Regardless of the fact that he was blind, Grandion knew exactly where that ralti sheep stood, frozen by his mighty roar. Wings flared, talons slashed; the hapless ralti sheep slammed against the cavern wall and was dead before she could even think to gasp.

  This was a hundred Islands beyond what she had imagined a Dragon feeding-frenzy to be. Lia could only shake her head as the Dragon guzzled and snorted and growled and bolted hunks of meat. Grandion tossed the sheep toward the ceiling, tearing off a haunch with a violent shake of his he
ad. Growls of pleasure resounded deep in his chest. Cracking open the skull, he sucked out the sheep’s brains and slurped them down with such relish that Lia decided, on the spot, to turn vegetarian.

  Imagine these table manners at a Fra’aniorian royal ball? “Oh, sweet Dragon,” she chortled to herself, “how delicately you dine.”

  If she did not lay claim to a chunk of meat soon, there would be nothing left. The Tourmaline Dragon was making a hearty mess of the spine and abdominal cavity, having already polished off the entire rear half of the sheep–a mind-boggling feat in itself. However, Lia realised, any interference might place one royal ward on the menu, roasted to perfection.

  Grandion needed to learn to treat his Princess-Rider with respect! Her stomach gurgled eagerly. Blow respect into a Cloudlands storm. She’d settle for food. Any food.

  Lia limped toward the feast, calling, Grandion. Will you share fresh kill with me?

  The Tourmaline Dragon’s paws clenched spasmodically, and his wings flared in a clear threat. Gore dripped from his snarling maw.

  Wow, you sure destroyed that sheep, said Hualiama, with forced admiration. Spare a fillet steak or two for a starving Human?

  She noted the exact moment that rational thought returned–the sheepish droop of his wings signalled chagrin, which Grandion immediately disguised with an overly casual relaxation of his posture. Of course I’ll share, he rumbled. Cooked?

  Chargrilled, said Lia. Yum! She’d make a terrible vegetarian.

  Do I hear you smiling?

  Drooling, actually.

  Aye, Princess of Fra’anior? he replied, with a crafty smile. Since e’er you saw a Tourmaline Dragon rise resplendent from the crater lake at the monastery, you’ve been drooling over me, haven’t you?

  Grandion! She blushed furiously. He remembered! Sly, scheming serpent–forty tonnes of macho ego furnished with a flaming temper, and she was surprised he acted in character? I’m hungry, she announced, primly. Feed me before I get grumpy. Who’d want to keep us alive? Razzior?