“If you knew that,” he asked incredulously, “why did you decide to lay your eggs here?”
“Because,” she stated flatly, “I had intended that my last clutch would be born free and the female would not be linked.”
They sat staring at one another for several moments, each considering the other, before she continued. “As I told you, there are advantages to being linked to another being. The two biggest advantages are never again being alone, and the fact that the two together are stronger than either of them would ever be singly. There are disadvantages as well. The two biggest disadvantages are never again being able to be completely alone, and sharing everything. When I say everything I mean everything, joy, sorrow, sensations of both pleasure and pain: affecting each other’s moods, even each other’s life cycles. It can be quite distracting if the two aren’t careful, but even with all of that, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.”
Again they stared openly at each other. Delno finally broke the silence between them by saying, “I merely wished to help you in your difficulty; I didn’t ask for this.”
“No,” she said flatly. “You didn’t ask for this, but it has been thrust upon you. I didn’t ask for this for my last daughter, either. Fate has forced this on us regardless of our original intentions.”
“And if I refuse to accept this?” he asked.
The response from the dragon startled him. He had expected outrage, perhaps threats, possibly even to be physically bullied. What he didn’t expect was the dragon’s dry laughter. “What’s so funny?” he asked, perturbed.
“If you are serious about refusing this, perhaps you should leave quickly,” she responded, still chuckling.
“Well, that does it,” he said, “After everything else that has happened to me in this life, I am not going to tolerate the condescending laughter of a suicidal female dragon. You are obviously suffering some mental fatigue from your ordeal, and I will leave you to it. I’ve done more than most would have anyway, so, by your leave, I will go on my way.”
The dragon merely nodded.
The first thing he realized as he decided he had had enough of dragons to last several lifetimes was that he was sitting there holding that enormous egg in his lap. In fact, he hadn’t noticed until now, but his legs were nearly numb from the weight. He started to roll the egg off of his lap, but as he did, he realized that he was exceedingly reluctant to do so. In fact, the very idea of being separated from the tiny, relatively speaking, creature inside the egg seemed almost foreign and unnatural to him. He tried several more times to push the egg aside, without success. Finally, with cold sweat breaking out on his brow, he recognized that the very effort of trying to rid himself of the egg was not only exhausting him, even though he had not actually expended any energy in the attempt, but the very thought of being separated from it was somehow frightening. Finally, he gave up and sat there, looking up dumbfounded at the dragon.
“Having trouble?” she said in a cloyingly sweet, mock-innocent tone.
“What have you done to me?” he hissed.
“I have done nothing,” she said. “You have bonded with the young dragon in that egg. The only way to break that bond is if one of you dies, and if that happens, the other will surely want to die also.”
Delno sat for several moments contemplating the implications of all the dragon had told him so far. The more he thought about it, the more natural it felt to him that he should be bonded to the young dragon curled up in the egg. He noticed that when he really concentrated on her, he could feel her presence. Not quite fully conscious yet, but aware on a deeper level, and she was especially aware of him. When he concentrated even more, he realized that she felt a deep affection for him, and he was surprised to find that he shared that affection. He slowly pulled back from the contact, not wanting to separate completely from it.
He realized that he was rubbing the burn the on his chest and it still smarted. Finally, he looked up at his dragon’s mother and said, “You could at least heal this burn like you did for my hand.”
Again the dragon chuckled, “I wouldn’t even if I could.”
“What?” he said. “Why not?”
“Because,” she told him, “that is no burn. It is the mark of a rider. It is placed upon a rider when he is bonded to his dragon. It is where the dragon energy first touched you.”
He pondered this for a moment. “Why then,” he asked, “didn’t it mark my hand instead of my chest?” “After all,” he continued, “I first touched the egg with my left hand while she was still stuck inside of you.”
“Because a dragon cannot bond until she is born. While she was still inside my body, my energy prevented the bonding. Usually a dragon doesn’t bond until after she has actually escaped her shell: to do so before hatching indicates a very strong connection indeed,” she said thoughtfully before continuing. “Then, normally, she will choose from among candidates presented to her. The candidates stand still in a circle around the hatchling, and she chooses one of them. Where she first touches that person, usually on the leg or thigh, is where that rider will be marked. When a bond is unusually strong, the dragon’s energy can pass through the shell after the egg is laid and place the mark on the human she is bonded to. Usually the hand is marked in such a case as it often happens when the candidate reaches out to touch the vessel. As her egg was expelled from my body, her head must have been positioned forward, and the energy passed between the two of you when you were struck on the chest.”
“Is it a scar?” Although he had never considered himself vain, he didn’t want a large scar on his body, either.
“No,” she laughed, “it feels like a burn for a couple of days or so, but it will soften and look like a birth mark. As time passes and the bond strengthens, it will eventually take the shape of a dragon and assume the color of the one to whom you are bonded.”
“Great, I’m going to have to walk around for the rest of my life (unnaturally prolonged) with a dragon-shaped birthmark on my chest,” he said.
Again the dragon chuckled. “Mind sharing the joke with me?” he said, “I could stand to hear something funny about now.”
“Your mark could have been worse,” she answered in that annoyingly amused tone.
“Really? I’m going to have to be careful about who is around every time I wish to remove my shirt to wash for the rest of my life.” He knew his annoyance came through in his voice, but he no longer cared. “How could it have been worse?”
“Well,” she said, almost giggling, “my older sister’s chosen rider was so sure that she was unworthy of the honor of being bonded to a dragon that she had just turned to leave the circle when my sister moved to touch her. The girl couldn’t sit comfortably for three days, and she carried the mark on her rump for nearly three millennia.” Then she started to laugh outright, finally controlling herself enough to say, “Of course, only a very select few ever saw that one.”
“At least,” he grumbled, “it’s normal for a person to not remove his trousers on a hot day.”
“Well,” she quipped, still chortling, “at least you didn’t try to duck and end up with the mark on your forehead.”
Realizing he couldn’t win this one, Delno changed the subject. “How long until it takes its final shape, and what color will it be?” he asked, looking inside his shirt to see the mark.
“As to how long it takes, that is dependent upon your bond with her: the stronger the bond, the sooner it will happen. The color will match hers, but until she hatches, even I can’t know that for certain,” she explained.
“You know so much about her, but you don’t know her color?” Delno was not quite ready to accept that answer.
“A dragon’s color is mostly dependent upon her parents,” she said. “However, since her father was red and I am green, she could be either color or a combination of both, or neither of them.”
“Neither of them?” He was more confused than before she had spoken.
“You see,” she went o
n, “a dragon’s color is mostly dependent on heredity, but not entirely. There is some choice while she is still in the egg. If she wills it, she could be any color she chooses, though usually she will contain some of the color of at least one of her parents. Also, both her sire and I have the traits for the colors of our parents in us, which could give her an entirely different hue.”
“So,’ he asked, “what does all of that mean?”
“In what way?” she answered.
He thought for a moment to clarify his question, “You are green, what abilities do green dragons have that, oh, say, red dragons don’t?”
“Ahhh,” she said. “I see what you are asking. Color has nothing to do with abilities. All dragons have the same abilities to one degree or another. We can fly, we can use magic, and we can breathe fire. Color has nothing to do with anything really, except that some dragons do prefer some colors over others, though it makes no difference during mating as that is controlled by instincts that supersede such pettiness.”
There was a moment of silence between them. During this time Delno looked down at himself and started to laugh. At first it was just a small chuckle, but it quickly grew into a near fit. The dragon looked at him with some concern in her eyes. “What is it?” she said.
He managed to control himself long enough to say, “I must look completely ridiculous sitting here with this egg in my lap,” he said, looking up at her with laugh tears blurring his vision.
“Yes, you do,” she said in a dry monotone.
That simple observation brought on a huge fit of laughter from both of them. When they again had control of themselves, Delno gently rolled the egg off of his lap, though he kept it near in a protective manner. As he rose to relieve his cramped legs, he bade the dragon to continue her instructions.
Chapter 5
“The first thing you need to understand is that a growing dragon needs meat, lots of it,” she said. “She will eat more than any animal of her size you have ever seen. A hatchling can eat one-third her weight each day. Fresh is best, but she will eagerly devour any meat you can provide.”
Delno calculated the young dragon’s weight by subtracting what he figured the shell would weigh from the weight he had shifted out of his lap and was suddenly daunted by the enormity of this: she already weighed as much as a full-grown man. Meat was expensive, and while he was a passable hunter at need, being able to supply such quantities was beyond his capabilities. His savings would be exhausted in the first few days if he tried to buy that much, not to mention having to leave the young dragon alone to get into mischief while he made daily trips to procure fresh provender.
Noticing the look of worry on his face, the dragon said, “Do not be overly alarmed. She will able to hunt for herself by the end of her first month, though she will quickly deplete an area of game if you stay in one place too long.”
“I suggest,” she continued, “that you begin working your way south as soon as she begins to hunt. There are several passes through the mountains. Choose one that is not heavily traveled. If you have training in map reading, you should get one, as those who would guide you on your journey may not be reliable.”
“Know this, too,” she said after a brief pause. “That mark you bear will betray what you are more and more as you move southward. Many in the south will revere you and help you along your path. Some will hold great enmity toward you for slights, real or imagined, that they feel they, or their ancestors, have suffered under the wings of the riders.
“Suffered under the wings of riders?” he asked. “What kind of suffering?”
“You must understand this, young rider: not all riders are noble, and not all dragons are kindly disposed to those of your kind to whom they are not bonded. There are, and probably always will be, those riders who feel that they have the right to take what they want, and allow their draconic partners to feed indiscriminately on other people’s herds without paying for what they take. Even in lands where the ruling nobility welcomes the dragon and rider, because their friendship provides a measure of protection, there may be many farmers and tradesmen who don’t share their lords’ opinion of the situation due to the greed and arrogance of such riders. Often such enmity is projected onto other riders even when they have done no wrong.”
While Delno didn’t tend to project his emotions in this manner, and tried to judge all individuals by their own merit, he knew that many people did. The example that sprung readily to mind in this land was the use of magic. To many of the people in Corice, the use of magic, whether it was used to commit a crime or heal the sick and injured, was, at the very least, suspect, and any who used magic were simply not to be trusted. He said as much to the dragon.
“Ah, then you have some understanding in this matter,” she said. “That is good; it may save you trouble in the future. Now, let us continue about dragon hatchlings and their growth, for I am weary and would like to finish some of my instruction before we sleep tonight.”
Delno quieted himself and waited patiently while the dragon collected her thoughts.
Finally, she continued. “I have told you how much a dragon eats. Do not be worried about over feeding her. While she will, at first, eat herself into a stupor, she will not over eat. A newly hatched dragon grows at a prodigious rate and needs a great deal of food to supply the energy for that growth. She will more than triple in size in her first month. By the end of her third month, she will be more than twice as large as any draft animal you have seen here in the north. By her sixth month, she will be nearly as large as any adult female dragon and larger than an adult male.”
Delno looked at the egg with an expression that was a mixture of awe, horror, and wonder. He calculated that the adult female had wings that were twenty yards long each. Added to the distance between the wings, that would give her a wingspan of nearly one hundred and thirty feet, and a body length of about ninety feet from nose to tail. Then a thought occurred to him, and he asked, “When will she start to fly?”
The dragon chuckled a bit before answering. “She will start flying within days of her hatching. Her first flights will be short, and she will be ungainly. Don’t let this alarm you; all dragons have to find their wings in this way. By the end of her first month, she will be proficient enough that she will be able to swoop down and take even the swiftest boar or similar-sized beast. Her wings won’t be strong enough to take the strain of bearing you as a rider until about her sixth month when she has attained most of her growth.”
And so the rest of the evening passed, with the dragon giving instruction and Delno occasionally asking questions. He learned about flight, about how and where to sit, with and without a saddle. He even learned the basics of constructing a saddle.
She spoke at length about how to judge the weather and the wind, explaining that such a large wingspan meant that high winds and strong sudden crosswinds could be dangerous. She told him about how to watch the clouds and the smaller flying creatures to help watch for such things as well as other possible airborne hazards. The young dragon, she said, would know instinctively about much of the way of flying, and they would have to learn the rest for themselves by actually experiencing it. For his part most of what she passed on was simply explanation of the mechanics involved to satisfy his curiosity since he would have little say in the matter once he and his partner were in the air. The role of the rider, as far as just flying was concerned, would be as a passenger with little real say in process other than direction of travel.
Finally, the dragon said, “I am weary, from my long flight and from the laborious birthing process I have gone through. Mostly, though, I am weary of talking. My grief for my rider is once again coming to the surface, and I fear my parental duties will not hold me to this world much longer. Tomorrow I will fly both you and the egg down from this cliff. For now, though, let us get what rest we can.”
After saying that, the dragon simply laid her head down, curled her tail protectively around both the egg and its rider, and appeared to go
to sleep. During the night, Delno was awakened by a curious sound. It sounded something like a cat mewling, but also a bit like a child whimpering. He looked at the dragon and realized that she was awake and crying. Huge tears rolled down from her eyes to be absorbed by the grass and soil of the clearing. He sensed that now that she had nearly fulfilled her parental duties, she was finally able to fully grieve for the loss of her rider, her soul-mate. The term, soul-mate, startled him and he began at last to understand the deep connection he and his draconic partner had made to each other even though she was not yet hatched. He knew that there were no words of condolence that he could offer the dragon for her loss. Instead, he settled for moving closer to her head, and wrapped one arm as far under her neck as could and placed his other hand higher up while he pillowed his head on her front foot. Then, keeping her in that somewhat clumsy embrace, he softly hummed to her while she slowly returned to a light slumber.
Chapter 6
Delno woke to the sound of birds singing their morning songs; however, it seemed strange that the birds would be singing when it still appeared to be dark. He was only more puzzled when he found that the reason for the darkness was due to the large leathery cover over his entire body. Then, as memory of the previous afternoon and evening returned, he realized that the cover over him was the dragon’s wing. She must have covered him and the egg to keep them warm during the night.
As he stirred, the dragon lifted her wing and asked, “Did you sleep well, young rider?”
“Quite well,” he replied. Then, noticing that he was slightly wet with sweat under his arms, he added, “In fact, if I’d been any warmer I would most likely have been uncomfortable.” He added a hearty thank you for her thoughtfulness as he bent to check the egg. It was doing fine as well, and the mental contact with the little dragon inside was just as strong as yesterday. After ensuring that everything was all right, he moved off to the bushes to answer nature’s call.
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