by Lisa Daniels
Being able to tidy up at any point amounted to a reward of sorts. So, this is the face that men want, Anya thought, not quite sure how or why. Mother said they'd have surely taken me if I didn't act like an urchin. With her breasts unbound, they slumped just in front of her chest. She had wide, child-bearing hips, as her mother liked to say. Another thing men find attractive. Anya wasn’t the tallest person around, which annoyed her – most of the other serfs reached loftier proportions. Even the kids managed to surpass her early.
Being clean, though, felt good. Smelling the fresh soap, with a hint of something fruity, not that Anya knew what type of fruit it represented, pleased her. She looked at her dirty clothes, unwilling to touch them again. She wrapped a towel around herself and left the bathroom. Then, taking a deep breath, Anya walked into the living room and asked if Kalgrin had anything for her to wear, like a large shirt she could use as a gown. Her heart fluttered awkwardly the whole while, as if she expected Kalgrin to morph into that hand-grabbing beast her mother claimed all men were.
He turned in his seat to regard her, having been ruffling his light brown hair, and his jaw actually dropped.
“Well, fuck me,” he said. “Look who was hiding underneath all that dirt.”
For some reason, the compliment made Anya blush, but also feel self-aware of the notion she only had a towel separating her from Kalgrin’s gray-eyed gaze.
“Well, it’s not like you can see much of me underneath several layers of shit, is it?”
“No,” he said, smiling. “That is indeed true. You know, I’m surprised you…” then he stopped, “no, that’s rude of me, I’m sorry for that.”
“You're surprised that I what?”
He licked his lips, drumming the side of his armchair. “I’m surprised you weren’t a captive in the wyrm’s house. They like to take the pretty ones.”
“I know,” Anya said, not offended at all. He only echoed what her mother and most of the other adults said. “I did everything I could to make myself ugly. And it worked. Did I look remotely attractive to you earlier?”
He chuckled. “I see your point.”
“Most women try to do that. Some even stuff clothes down their pants to make it look like they have cocks.” Her cheek temperature rose as she said this. She thought it a great idea from the women, but saying this in front of Kalgrin made her notions absurd. She didn't want to mention cock in front of him. She didn't want to steer the conversation towards anything that might even hint at sexuality.
“Smart,” Kalgrin said. He nodded his approval. “Dragons keep thinking you lot are incapable of doing anything for yourselves, but you find ways around the system. You may be battered, you may be beaten, but there’s still things you do.” He seemed rather pleased with the fact.
He's got such a bright smile. Like it could blind me if I stare at it for too long. Anya kept getting impulses to move around, just so she could inspect Kalgrin from every angle possible. To see what he appeared like from the side and back, if that nose was as sharp as it looked. It irritated her in a way that he looked so attractive. Dragons weren't supposed to be attractive. Yet something in her stomach swirled anyway, making her uncomfortable. It kind of squirmed in there like some caterpillar. Not nice at all. Maybe she was getting her blood early? That usually caused stomach upsets.
Or maybe she was coming down with a fever, given that her cheeks seemed to be permanently flushed.
“Yes. We do small things like this to try and make our lives easier. It doesn’t change, though. We’re too afraid, and they always find ways to get at us, no matter how careful we are.” Anya closed her eyes for a moment. The anger passed through her in a wave. “I know you told me to stop worrying about the fact that something has happened to my family, but I can't. It's... it's my fault they might be dead. It squeezes me here.” She tapped her chest, indicating the guilt.
Kalgrin's eyes lightly trailed over her towel, before resting on her face. “How many family members do you have?”
“Six.”
He whistled. “That's a lot.”
“Human women tend to have a lot of children on the plantation. It's my grandpa, my ma, and my four younger sisters and brothers. None of my siblings have names yet.”
Kalgrin seemed to find this concept hard to grasp. “No names? Why?”
“If they survive to their tenth birthday, they get a name.”
“Ah.” He fell silent and solemn at this. The awful truth of it seemed to linger in the air, reminding them of the high human mortality rate. Of the sheer hopelessness of their situation. “That makes a wretched kind of sense. Still horrible, though.”
“I give them names, anyway. The babies are Chub and Podge. The older ones are Tantrum and Sniffles.”
“Nice.” He smiled fondly. “My mother did that with some kittens she planned to sell. She knew she wasn't supposed to name them, but she did anyway. Lazy, Stupid, and Adventurous. Still hold a special place in her heart.”
On one hand, it seemed demeaning to be compared to kittens. On the other hand, it did make sense.
“You have family?” Everyone had family, of course. But not everyone knew them.
“Yes. Mother and father. Drakes. Only child. Drakes don't tend to have a lot of children. Same with wyrms, actually. My parents live in a neat little house in the Frostlands. Which is a long way from here. I visit them every now and then.”
“Do they share your attitude to humans?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You don't think I naturally started liking them, do you?”
Anya shrugged. She wouldn't know. Kalgrin's eyes flicked over her again. She looked down upon her body, which Kalgrin kept discreetly skimming. Right. She needed clothes. She was probably quite distracting like this. And yes, her cheeks had definitely increased in temperature. Maybe she should ask him for some medicine. “So, about that shirt you were offering me?”
Now Kalgrin's cheeks brightened slightly. “Oh! Yes. Of course. Follow me, my towel-wrapped friend. I’ll show you where you can sleep as well. It'll probably be a better nap than in my claws.”
Kalgrin beckoned her over, and she paced towards a double bed through a door to the left of the house. It lay nearby the washroom, with clothes slung haphazardly over a chair.
“This is actually my bedroom, so if you'll excuse the mess...”
For one second, wild panic stopped Anya's heart, before Kalgrin added, “I’ll be sleeping on the floor in the living room, since I only have one bed. Now, let me see…” He began rummaging through a chest of drawers, pulling out a baggy shirt that looked like a tent. “Here. Do you want underwear, too? I have some shorts…” He took out some white shorts and tossed them her way. “I didn't actually get around to making your delicious toast and butter meal yet, but I will now. The bread's a little stale, so it'll be better burnt. Come into the living room in a few minutes.” He gave her a little wink, then ducked out of the room and closed the door.
Anya's heart slowly returned to its normal pace. For one insane second, she'd believed Kalgrin intended to sleep in the same bed as her. Which meant him doing male things. Male things that resulted in babies.
Why the fuck had she thought that? Gods, her mother had corrupted her thinking on this. Kalgrin might be a male, but that didn't mean he had uncontrollable urges to fuck things.
She knew... well, it made sense men and women got attracted to one another. Something needed to happen to keep the babies coming. But people also practised self-control. Anya felt attraction all the time in the plantation, but she chose to control it.
She didn't want to risk bringing any children into such a miserable world. She didn't fault those who did, because maybe having something to love made it better. She just didn't want to be a part of it.
Thank you, Kalgrin. Genuine gratitude flooded into Anya's heart for the first time. Now that she'd let go of her fear and exhaustion, of her instant judgment when it came to dragons, she saw him for what he was. Someone who had gone above and beyond to g
et her out of there. Someone who had abandoned his plans to keep her safe.
Plans to kill the wyrms. Plans she'd always wanted to execute herself.
Anya took the time to inspect her new room. Honestly, although the appreciation clutched at her heart, she found Kalgrin a hard one to figure out. He just casually chatted to her and did these things for her without a second thought. Like it didn’t even occur to him that she was some kind of lesser being, as wyrms loved to enforce. Even when he’d seen her face-to-face without the dirt and grime of her disguise on, he’d simply admired her, then let her go on her way. Without ravaging her like dragons were supposed to do. Still, that glimmer of interest from him meant her mother was right. She was attractive. To him, anyway.
Thinking about her mother made Anya stare at the bed with an icy fist around her heart. Curses, she needed to just stop. Dead or alive, there was nothing she could do about it for now. Kalgrin had taken her out of that place. He'd freed her.
For the first time, she walked around a place with her shoulders straight rather than hunched. She moved without the terror of being beaten, of being discovered and dragged away. She stood here, washed clean, and didn't dread the reveal of her body. She relished not having her breasts bound, too. That shit hurt.
I'm safe. I'm safer than I've ever been. My mother would be proud of this. She'd be proud to know her daughter made it out.
This thought counted on Kalgrin being the person he said he was. That he'd truly spotted her and made the split decision to save her. And then proceeded to talk her ear off as he carried her through the dark sky. Carried her in his arms as he walked to his little house, let her use his bathtub, and sleep in his only bed. He might not be wealthy, even for a dragon, but he treated her like an equal. Someone worth saving.
The thought sobered her up. Knowing that a complete stranger found her worthwhile. Most humans wouldn't have even bothered. Then again, humans didn't have the power to fly away. If they tried to help her, they'd just end up dying along with her.
It bugged her, somehow. She slipped on the baggy shirt, and tried on the underwear, though she needed to tighten it around the waistband to make it stay up.
She struggled to balance her thoughts, to keep them from imagining horrible things happening to her family. The rawness of that panic still lingered in her soul. Waking up to hear them searching for her. Seeing her mother's frantic movements, understanding the situation before Anya did, and forcing her daughter to escape through the privy.
One way to escape, she supposed.
And this dragon, this drake claimed he was going to kill the owner of the plantation.
If they fought in their dragon forms, Anya didn’t know who would win. The huge wyrm that towered above everything, thrashing with that huge, serpentine tail, scratching with sharp, cruel claws? Or the drake, smaller, more mobile, with thicker scales and an inexplicable animosity towards their cousins?
Protecting humans. There were things out there that actually wanted to help them. Anya lay in Kalgrin’s bed feeling utterly overwhelmed. She spread out her arms, letting her left fingers dangle over the sides. Cracks displayed in the black wooden beams in the ceiling, and she thought she spotted a spider, snuggled up in a groove.
There was just so much she didn’t know about the place she lived in. Her view of the world was limited to the stories upon the plantation, the cruelty of her masters, and a vague idea of the city. Nothing about other types of dragons, or if they liked or hated each other, or if humans lived in areas where they didn’t toil under the whip, or suffer early deaths from abuse and apathy.
Maybe she'd even bumped into a drake in the city, and just didn't realize who they were at all. Wyrms had yellow eyes, after all. Kalgrin's eyes shone an iron gray. The default drake color?
Either way, the lack of knowledge in her head loomed like the dark tunnel in her mind. A place where a shameful gap in her thoughts existed. Part of her wanted to sleep right now – until her stomach gave a growl, reminding her that Kalgrin was busy burning bread in his kitchen.
Sighing, she creaked herself out of bed, her bare feet padding on the smooth wooden floorboards. The aroma of toasted bread permeated her nostrils, and she sniffed in appreciation.
“Aha,” Kalgrin said, giving her an irritatingly charming smile. “For a moment, I was worried you might have fallen asleep. Not that I'd blame you, given all the excitement of tonight.”
She shrugged. “Not until I've had the pleasure of eating your food.”
“Pleasure, huh?” The smile turned into a smirk, before his expression turned grave. As if remembering that it wasn't a good time to smirk. “Here you go. You can take it into your room if you want. I have some books in there if you want to read before sleeping as well... oh. Do you know how to read?”
Anya shook her head. Again, that hollowness tapped at her. Reminding her that she knew so little. “They don't teach slaves to read. But we'd tell stories to one another.”
“That's good. Stories are important. It's how you learn your history, and learn from mistakes of the past.” Kalgrin quickly finished buttering her toast and then smearing a strange red substance over it, which he called strawberry jam. He told her strawberry was a red fruit, and she took his word for it. With her toast prepared, and a glass of water cupped in her hand, she ventured back into the bedroom.
Learn from mistakes in the past. Anya suspected that statement held some special meaning with Kalgrin. Maybe to do with his personal past, or of the past he knew through those books.
As she chewed through her food, smacking her lips in delight at the sweet, tingling texture of the jam, along with the crunch of the toast and the wetness of the butter, she let out a groan.
How could something so simple be so delicious? And this jam – whatever it was, she'd happily eat a whole jar of the stuff.
I wonder what mistake he's made. Why he does the things he claims to do now. Everyone has a story.
Thinking of stories, Anya remembered one her grandpa used to say. One that made people sigh and wish that what he said was true, rather than wistful fancy.
“Once upon a time, we humans used to have magic in our blood,” Grandpa said in that crackly voice of his, as if sandpaper had wedged in his throat, making the words grate out. “Magic so strong that the wyrms quivered in fear. They hated us for the magic, and they sought to take it from our souls. They succeeded through dark and terrible means, and made humans weaklings in comparison to them.”
Anya didn't know how Grandpa knew the story. She just took it for granted that he knew everything.
“But they say one day the magic will return. It can't stay blocked up forever. It is like water. It will find a way through the stones. And humans will rise once again, and take their rightful place in the world.”
It wasn't a story about heroes. It was a stories about villains, about humans being tricked out of their magic, the methods lost to them forever.
Except, Anya knew the idea of humans possessing magic to be ridiculous.
She dreamed about it, sure. Everyone dreamed of a magic solution for their issues at some point.
She just knew better than to attempt to act upon it.
Anya finished her toast, wiped down her fingers with a cloth, and drank the water. She then fell asleep with that deep fear tickling at her consciousness, uncertain if her life really was going to improve, or whether she had moved into a new kind of nightmare. One where she was responsible for the deaths of her entire family. All because she dared to dream, and ignore advice.
All because.
Chapter Three
Kalgrin crept into the room a few hours after Anya had retired to bed. He wanted to see the woman for himself. Honestly, that transformation from muck to marvel still floored him. To think such a beautiful woman had hidden under all that. He knew the grime wasn't her fault as well, though it had taken everything he had to keep his mind away from what she smelled like, so he wouldn't do the undignified thing: hurl, and humiliate her
further.
Poor thing had been scared witless when he scooped her up. He didn't have time to explain, not with those bastards chasing her. He was probably lucky she didn't die from a heart attack.
No doubt father would chide him for his sloppy handling of the situation, and for prioritizing the woman over the mission. Curse it, though. She would have died in front of his eyes otherwise.
Now this lost soul lay in his bed, slumbering. Maybe having a nightmare of her family, judging by the way she twitched and shivered in her sleep. He'd hoped to find her lying there serenely, to be able to look at her expression without the guard it wore. Instead, he found one scrunched up in stress.
Normally, he'd hand off a new rescue to the Center. Any rescues in the area went there for rehabilitation, sometimes to break them out of their slave mentalities, and then place them somewhere where they could work, contribute to the organization, and stay safe.
Something about this woman told him she hadn't broken.
He thought it a positive sign. It showed she possessed a strong spirit under that diminutive body. She would do well. He intended to gently prod at her, to see if any underlying traumas existed in her psyche. Humans were very good at hiding these things. Hiding themselves.
They needed to. He wished they didn't.
He reached out a hand to touch her forehead. She'd either wake up, startled, in which case, she no longer experienced whatever distressed her, or his touch would help soothe her, and bring her into a calm state of sleep again.
Her skin burned under his palm. A fever? He checked her neck, her back. No. Just her cheeks. Everything else remained normal, though her heart beat fast, as if being chased.