Sonata Form

by Carole Cummings

  The spitter swiveled her head to where Milo was pointing, indifferent gaze sharpening for the briefest of seconds before she looked away, a very clear pfffft, or at least that’s what Milo read into it. He smirked. Drunk dragons were always fun.

  “You let me finish without being a great child about it, and I’ll play for you. If you don’t let me finish, that claw is going to get more infected, and you’ll not only be sore, you won’t get any music, because it’s already getting dark and I’m cold and hungry. Understood?”

  Intelligent creatures, dragons, though the prevailing wisdom was they didn’t understand words so much as tone and nuance like any other animal. Milo privately thought it was a bit more than that. He was pretty sure the dragons Saw the same way he did. Either way, the spitter clearly understood Milo’s offer of a bargain—her colors flared, slate-blue indignation, before a roseate prickle of unease flickered right down the middle. She swung her head away so only one great eye was glaring at Milo. Deliberately, or at least it seemed so, the nictitating membrane slid over, blatant dismissal, though the dragon did plant herself more firmly in the mud and make a great show of going still. All of it done with a low, rumbling growl, but still.

  Milo snorted with a fond shake of his head and went back to work. Once he didn’t have to contend with careless claws waving about at unexpected moments, or getting whacked in the head with her stunted wing, it was easy. The plaster he’d managed to apply before had started to solidify, and there was indeed dirt and mud now mixed with the herbs and medicines he’d packed into the wound an hour ago. Removing, recleaning, then repacking took only a few minutes, and once again Milo began applying the plaster from his bucket around the claw bed, working it between the small scales on the toes and on up to the carpal joint.

  He smoothed it as much as he could, leaving it thickest over the ragged mess of the torn claw, and crouched with his knees in the mud to have a good look. The raw throb of red was still sliding over and around the wound, though that was to be expected until it was allowed to heal some more, and it was a clean scarlet, rather than a sickly brick. Milo was pleased to see only a few prickly jags of swampy green winding through, and hoped that meant he’d caught the infection before it could take hold—provided the dragon didn’t chew off the cast just to be difficult.

  She was too cold, though. Normally being this close to a dragon was like standing next to an open fire. But this one hadn’t shown up at the forge for her rations in days, which was why Milo had come looking for her, and why he’d have to keep a good eye on her. The sulfur-on-petrol pong that was sometimes enough to make his eyes water was too faint.

  She’d been born here three years ago, her egg damaged and discarded by the migrating clan when it failed to hatch. It was pure chance Nain had found her, weeks later, a pitiful hatchling mewling on the edge of the hot spring nursery on the southwest part of the preserve, trying to use her malformed wings for balance as she tripped and blundered through deadfall and overgrowth. She’d never fly, and with her foot the way it was, she was going to have a hard time hobbling all the way to the forge. If she didn’t manage it in another couple days, Milo was going to have to haul out the winch and tractor and get her there himself.

  He blew out a weary huff, already thinking ahead to the ordeal and hoping it didn’t come to that.

  “Don’t move,” he told the spitter, standing and making his way over to his cart to clean himself up before the plaster on his hands hardened. “Eh-eh, hold it up,” he snapped, not even having to look to know the dragon was in the process of plopping the unset cast right back into the mud again.

  Intelligent creatures, sure, but dragons were also smartarses, at least in Milo’s experience. Like cats, they were equally likely to give you a swat of a spiked tail for no reason as they were to show their bellies to let you scratch a hard to reach spot between their scales. And, like cats, they liked to believe they could get along nicely without you, ta very much, and only deigned to suffer your existence because you could sometimes be helpful and entertaining.

  Plaster-free, though freezing now, Milo dried his numb fingers then curled them into fists and blew into them. Once he could move them again without breaking them off, he dug some bits of apple out of his pocket for Poppy then tossed her some hay. It had been a long day, making the rounds of the preserve, and though she huffed her displeasure every time they’d had to stop for a while to tend to wounds or illnesses, or for Lleu to snuffle the undergrowth of a thicket looking for the spitter, she’d been more of a sport about it than usual. Bred from a strain specifically developed to tolerate the dragons, the pony quite frankly typically tolerated them better than she did Milo. Any other day, she’d be surreptitiously trying to turn them for home and stable every chance she got, just to see if she could get away with it. Today, as though she’d known Milo had been worried, she’d moseyed along after Lleu without once trying to nudge Milo toward warm hay and a waiting bucket of oats.

  With a good scrub at the mare’s neck, Milo turned back to the dragon, amused to see her still standing ostentatiously motionless and with her head turned, deliberately not looking at Milo. Since she was also still standing with her foreleg off the ground and the new cast out of the mud, Milo took it for a win. Smirking, he nudged aside his rifle—dragons might be the biggest predators out here, but they weren’t the only ones—and unclipped the latches on the violin case. The dragon perked at the sound, no longer pretending to ignore Milo as he slid the violin out of its case and took up the bow. The drug must have been wearing off; her gaze was sharper, and her colors more vibrant.

  “All right, you can put your foot down now,” Milo said with a grin, and then he began to play.

  It wasn’t only for the dragon, honestly, though sure, Milo loved that something so simple could bring such calm and ease to beasts that came to this place because they’d been hurt or were sick and had few other places to go. And he loved that once the first notes left the strings, grappling with the eddy and toss of chill sea air then sliding along it, winding through it, other dragons would come and settle in around him in sleepy piles. Some even now and then softly blew their own calls to furl just beneath the harmonics and vibratos of the concerto or sonata or jig, or whatever Milo chose to play.

  Three of them were winging in now, stark shapes against the darkening sky, looping wide and slow like hawks. Two of them were blackhorns, bellies pulsing like winking stars with a soft orange glow, fresh from their rations from Howell at the forge. The other had the slick javelin-with-wings shape of a whip-tailed wrangler, iridescent scales catching the flagging light of the gloaming and sparking warm. One at a time they skimmed into a soft glide and circled to ground far enough away so the bursts of wind from their backwing landings didn’t blow Milo over. The ground only shook somewhat as they plodded toward the little spitter, allowing her the space she’d already claimed, though still moving in close to warm her. Even that display of care didn’t prevent the occasional snap or snarl or nip at a neck as they poked and bumped each other for dominance and position.

  More came as Milo slipped his bow across the strings and let his spirit coast away into the glissandos and modulations with this growing pile of dragons that welcomed him with their strange antagonistic affections. They’d mourned his nain when she’d died. He’d seen the colors sodden with grief. They missed Milo while he was gone, he could tell, yellows and greens flaring bright every time he came back, nuzzles unasked for from snouts bigger than he was, and sonorous calls they usually reserved for each other. Howell just wouldn’t do, and Milo’s mam had never had a rapport with them. As far as Milo knew, she’d never really cared to have one. She didn’t even like the smell of them on Milo when he came home from a day of caring for them, and they barely acknowledged her presence on the rare occasions she ventured out to one of the pastures. She and Howell had only just managed that last half year after Nain died and Milo was finishing school.

  Milo thought it really all came down to the fact that
neither Ceri nor Howell loved the dragons, not like Milo did.

  It had been difficult these past few months, trying so hard to fit himself back into spaces he didn’t really know anymore, or had maybe outgrown. Realizing he was a stranger in his own village, his own home.

  Here, he was nothing of the sort.

  So he played on. The dragons answered the soft appeal of the music from every corner of the preserve, shouldering through the trees that formed a natural corral around the meadow then jostling into a motley pile. Milo kept a tally in his head as they came, satisfied when all fourteen were accounted for, the long day of searching made worth it, and the numbness of his fingers ignored for as long as possible.

  The nights were getting colder, only a month or so away from Highwinter as it was. Dragons needed the warmth of the thermal spring caves where they nested, and they wouldn’t retire to them until Milo stopped playing. So he did, earlier than he would’ve liked, but lunch had been a long time ago, he’d burned up a lot of energy with the sleep charms, and he was cold. If he was cold, the dragons were cold. And Poppy had been more than patient.

  By the time Milo got his violin packed back up and the contents of the cart strapped down, the corral was empty but for the distant silhouette of the spitter making her way into the trees. An ancient horned razorback bull slowed his steps so she could hobble beside him, her stumpy wings flaring then folding. Milo suspected the torn claw was the result of a tumble from her latest attempt at flying, though he’d never try to stop her, even if he thought she might obey. Especially if he thought she might obey. Flying was a part of what a dragon was—who was Milo to decide it was better or safer for any one of them to not be what they were? As long as she kept trying, Milo would keep patching her up.

  A burst of light on the north point of the preserve flashed over the treetops, flickered once, twice, then went out. Ceri’s signal to Milo that supper was on and it was time to wrap things up. With a scratch to Poppy’s neck, Milo tossed up a magelight to see by and headed home.

  THE WARMTH might as well have slapped Milo’s cheeks as he swung the door open. He was immediately halted on the threshold by his mam snapping at him, “You’re wearing half the south fields on those boots, Milo Priddy.”

  “Yes.” Milo aimed a pointed glance at the mudroom through the doorway as Lleu squeezed past Milo’s legs, snatching up his antler to enjoy in the comfort of his bed by the kitchen hearth. “Too bad there isn’t a room dedicated to rectifying just such a predicament. Like, oh, I dunno—maybe a mudroom.”

  The savory smells wafting out from the kitchen beyond the mudroom were making him lightheaded. And he could proper murder a cup of tea.

  Ceri gave him a narrow look over pursed lips. “At least scrape off the top layer.”

  Milo rolled his eyes as he stooped to tug off his boots, but scowled when Ceri told him the trousers needed to go too. And the coat, while he was at it.

  “And shut that door, it’s freezing out there.”

  “Mam.” Milo straightened. “I’m freezing out here, and I can’t shut the door until I’m in there.”

  She didn’t bother to argue what Milo thought was a rather salient point—she merely disproved it by stalking over to him, giving him a little push backward, and shutting the door in his face.

  “You let the muddy dog in!” Milo called through it, though he found himself grinning, boots in one hand as he tried to undo his trousers with the other.

  Any other time, he’d be angry. Since it was the most normal thing his mam had done in the three weeks since they’d been back from Wellech and not really speaking to each other, he decided to be amused instead. Two days ago, Ceri would’ve merely given Milo’s muddy state a disapproving once-over then glared at anything other than him. Milo would’ve answered by ignoring her and doing as he damn well pleased while being excruciatingly and obnoxiously polite about it. Now it seemed prudent to take the tiny shift toward normalcy Ceri’s scolding looked like and answer in kind.

  “That’s all right, I’ll just undress out here. On the porch. Of my own home!” He decided to not care how undignified he probably looked trying to remove his trousers onehanded. He was only glad someone had already put the chickens in their coop; trying to keep Ansel—the ancient, ornery, half-blind and highly unpleasant rooster—from attacking his shins just for fun was more than Milo wanted to deal with right now. “It’s not like I’ll catch the lung-sick or anything, out here in the cold half-nak—”

  The door swung back open.

  “—ed with my arse hanging....” Milo paused in an awkward crouch, one muddy trouser leg off, and the other at halfmast. “Haia, Glynn.”

  Glynn’s bright hair was haloed by the warm light behind her. “Haia, Milo.”

  “I, ehm. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “It’s my birthday. Your mam invited me and Tad for supper.”

  “Oh. There’s lovely. Happy birthday.”

  “Ta.”

  “…So. Thirteen, is it?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Right enough. Well. Cheers, then.”

  “Ta again.”

  She was just standing there. Grinning. Wicked. Because she was a brat. Always had been. And, Milo couldn’t help noticing, not getting a reprimand from Ceri about the open door.

  “So, I’m gonna....” Milo gave Glynn the go away look he’d been giving her since she was wee and wobbly.

  She heeded it just as well as she’d always done.

  Milo knew better than to try to wait her out, so he merely rolled his eyes. “You know what? Fine. Here.” He tugged the remaining leg free and shoved the trousers at Glynn. “Be helpful if you’re only going to stand there. And shut that door.”

  Glynn creased up with a giggle, and finally stepped out onto the small porch to pull the door shut. “Give me the boots or you’ll ruin your coat.” She grimaced as she snagged the boots out of Milo’s hand and took hold of his coat sleeve. “Pull.”

  “You’ll get plaster all over your—”

  “Pull.”

  Milo pulled.

  “And where’s your light?”

  Milo huffed as he let Glynn help him get the thick coat off. “I doused it when I came up the walk, since I had no idea I’d be turned away at my own backdoor like an urchin.” When he was free of the coat, he pulled up another magelight. And paused. He frowned. “What happened to your eye?”

  Glynn’s mouth pinched in disapproval. “The mud’s gone all the way through to your longs. Did you want to take those—?”

  “I am not stripping to skin in the cold on my own back porch, and with you here to heckle me.” Milo waved it away. “Seriously, Glynn—you look like you got punched.” And Milo would know, seeing as how the last of the bruise he’d got in Wellech had still been a light yellow-green ghost only last week. Milo took a step in. “Did you get punched?”

  Glynn sighed the sigh of the very much put-upon. “You’re as bad as my tad.” She rolled her eyes. “No, I didn’t get punched, I got hit. There’s a difference. But I promise you, Cennydd came away much worse.”

  “Cennydd? Cennydd Driscoll dy Lloyd?” Milo took the coat back, and then the boots, dropping them into a muddy pile by the washing barrel. “For pity’s sake, he’s got at least a stone or two on you! What were you thinking? What was he thinking?”

  “He doesn’t think at all, innit? At least not like a normal person.” Glynn lifted her chin. “That’s his problem.” When Milo merely stared at her, lost, she huffed and said, “You know how he is about the dragons.”

  “Yes, chopsy as a crow and a sincere pain in the arse because I won’t let him past the wards to wander about the preserve unsupervised.”

  Glynn wrinkled her nose. “And I can. So he’s decided he hates me now.” She shrugged, unconcerned. “I get to come to work with Tad when I’m not in school. I get to see dragons.” She paused with a speaking look. “And I get to see you.”

  She kept looking at Milo, as though expecting… something. Milo
had no idea what.

  He shook his head with a frown, rubbing briskly at his arms. He’d been cold when he’d got home, and now he was standing out here in nothing but his long underwear and a tatty, ancient cable jumper.

  “Are you telling me you got in a fight with Cennydd because he’s jealous?”

  “No, I’m telling you Cennydd ‘accidentally’ hit me in the face with his cricket bat because he’s jealous. I got in a fight with him because he’s a worm who hit me with a cricket bat, and I was that tamping.”

  Well. Milo reckoned getting whacked with a bat would get anyone proper cross.

  “Oh, bloody.... Fine.” Milo sighed as he retrieved the rifle from where he’d propped it and waved Glynn away from the door. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Glynn followed Milo into the mudroom, and shut the door behind her, eyebrows squinched in mild outrage. “Oh, will you, then.” Huffing, she chucked Milo’s muddy trousers into the corner beneath the coatrack. “I don’t need you to—”

  “I know you don’t.” Milo set the rifle in its rack, lobbed his hat at the hooks on the wall—missed, of course—and sighed a blessing under his breath for the basin of warm water waiting for him on the bench, more evidence his mam was done being angry with him. He pushed up his sleeves and dipped his arms in up to the elbows, swished them around as his fingertips burned and goosebumps blossomed to race over every inch of him, before he bent to wash his face. “You very clearly can handle your own affairs, Glynn, I’m not saying otherwise.” He reached for the cloth she handed him to dry his face. “It’s more for his benefit than yours. He’s perhaps a bit odd, but he—”

  “He’s a proper minging sheephead.” Glynn held up her hands when Milo gave her an impatient look. “Fine. Have your talk. But I’m telling you”—she snagged the cloth and reached up to rub roughly at a spot of dried mud in Milo’s hair; it felt more like a diffident assault—“there’s something not right about him. Something… off.”