May huffed a little, frowning faintly. "In that case," she said, and cleared her throat.
She'd never had much patience for philosophy, but philosophy's main problem was when it asked stupid questions. She didn't have the time or patience to mull over questions such as Could my perceptions be different from everyone else's? How can we trust that our senses are the same? If you see a horse, might I be seeing a dog? and idiocy like that. If she saw a horse, so was anyone else—assuming they knew what a horse was and were capable of sight.
But this sort of question was different. This one was relevant to her life as a knight—to any person's life, really, but especially those seeking to set their names down in history. It might not be the most comfortable question to explore, but it was one that she thought more people should explore.
Especially the other knights back at court. They wouldn't, but she might as well.
She took a few moments to think through her answer, trying to find the best way to phrase it. "I think," she began slowly, "that this is the sort of thing that's better to discuss than just answer plainly. But 'who defines morality' is going to sometimes have a different answer from 'what's good and what's bad', isn't it? Because it's society who decides morality, but who says that society has the right idea? Half the knights at court think I'm an immoral woman for running around in breeches and focusing on glory instead of bearing children. But that doesn't fundamentally make me immoral, especially if I'm doing the same thing the men do. If it's moral in them, why not in me? If saving others and making one's name known is 'good', then how is it 'bad' for anyone, except in terms of how one goes about it?"
"Ah, how one goes about it," the dragon said. "So here's where you put 'goodness' and 'badness', kitten?"
"Well, lizard," May said, then smiled at her as she thought of a way to phrase it. "Say you agreed to this challenge and set the terms—as you have."
"Yes, that's easy to imagine," the dragon agreed lightly.
May snorted softly, amused and strangely flustered. She found herself having to look down, to keep herself from meeting the dragon's silver eyes as she tried to feel out the answer inside herself. "Right," she said. "Easy to imagine. But say that you then got tired of thinking up challenges about me, or grew afraid that I might win and thus slay you on those final days of combat, as I'm sure has occurred to you."
"Has it?" the dragon murmured. "So what are we imagining I do?"
"You attack me in the night," May said promptly, looking back up at the dragon for any sign of a reaction. She got none other than mild amusement. "You decide to take no chances with an armored knight fully prepared for battle, and you sneak up on my tent and bite through me without a moment's hesitation. You could probably claim some glory for that—I'm not as well-respected as male knights with half as many achievements, but I am respected. You'll have defeated Ismay the Lioness, and could claim some glory. But of course, it would have been done through breaking your word and killing an unarmed opponent."
"Ah, and thus bad," the dragon said, even more amused. "Glory is good if done through moral means? I feel like you're avoiding the question a little."
"Am I?" May asked, surprised. "I feel like you can say that in so many ways, though. If a woman is called to battle, is she immoral for responding, when the 'moral' behavior of a woman is to raise the children of a noble man?"
"Oh, ugh," the dragon said, rolling her eyes. "Heaven forfend noble men. So essentially, morality is flexible based on society's expectations and hopes, and supports the continuation of those expectations, but a good or bad deed is more inherent."
"Well said," May said. "I should have just let you answer this yourself."
"But you haven't answered what makes a person good or bad," the dragon shrewdly, as though she thought she'd caught May out in a lie. "Ignoring the fact in your example that I am a beast, and I think all would say that beasts have no morality, no goodness or badness to them, what of a human whose personal calling was to kill others cruelly? To rape and murder and burn the house down after? Society would consider that immoral, and I think most would consider that bad as well, if you really want to separate them! But if we take away society's expectations and hopes—or public morality—as a factor, what is the difference between a good deed and a bad one? If both are simply a matter of following one's heart—"
May raised a hand, bringing it down sharply like she could cut off that line of thought. Surprising both of them, the dragon fell silent. "It is a matter of the heart," she insisted. "But of course there's a difference between good and bad things, even if the person doing it can't understand that. The pursuit of personal happiness can't be bad if it's harming no one, but if that personal happiness hinges on harming others, that's... that's abhorrent! And," she added, getting more impassioned by the smug superiority on the dragon's face and wanting to wipe it off, "don't say, oh, I'm a beast. You couldn't raise this as a philosophical topic at all, let alone discuss it, if you were a beast with no concept of good or ill!"
"And yet," the dragon said, "you came here to slay a dragon."
May's heart stuttered in her chest. "To free a princess."
"And would you not slay me to do so?" the dragon asked, lowering its front feet to the ground again. "If that were the way to do so?"
"And yet I'm going along with your challenge," May said, strangely hurt, heart thudding, because it wasn't exactly untrue. They were going to fight at the end of all these questions—it was part of the dragon's own terms. And May doubted either of them would take it easy on the other. "I didn't attack you when you came out the window. I didn't shoot you down. I'm only going to fight you at the time you've chosen—"
The dragon cut her off. "An interesting answer," she said.
And abruptly, she was withdrawing, clambering the tower and winding around and around it. "You pass for today," the dragon called down. "We will talk again tomorrow. Do what you like with the rest of the evening... I promise I won't attack you in the night!"
She slithered into the window, leaving May below, heart still pounding, a strange ache in her chest and a sour taste in her mouth.
*~*~*
The dragon didn't come down again that night, not even when May cooked fish she'd caught and called up to her, offering one. Somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed, she just left the extra cooked fish at the base of the tower when she went to bed that night.
When she climbed out of the tent in the morning, the fish was gone, though the dragon was still nowhere in sight.
May did her morning chores, and was well into cleaning her riding tack when the dragon finally decided to show herself again. "Good afternoon, kitten," the dragon greeted her lightly, apparently already over whatever mood had seized her.
"Afternoon, lizard," May retorted, slightly frustrated. Her fingers were slick with oil, and she didn't look up from what she was doing. "Do you want to start right away, or do you mind letting me finish this?"
"Oh, well," the dragon said, laughter in her voice. "Don't let me hurry you."
"I shan't, thank you." May continued rubbing oil into the saddle until it stopped absorbing the excess. That, she wiped off with a cloth, then gave her greasy fingers the same treatment. On good days, tending to her gear was relaxing, like entering an otherworldly state of mind, near-dreaming. Today, it hadn't been, and it still wasn't, but while it had been just a chore when she'd started, it became at least calming with the dragon watching her. It should have been the opposite, with a big predatory monster keeping an eye on her while she was distracted and unarmed, but knowing that the dragon had forgiven her whatever slight she hadn't meant to make—or whatever slight the dragon had took, whether or not she'd made one—helped.
When she was done, she tucked her rag away and looked back up at the dragon. "Well?"
"I hoped you'd offer to polish me next," the dragon said, with her usual needle-toothed smile. "My scales could get a bit brighter."
May could see herself in the dragon's scales. "I'm n
ot sure we're close enough for that, friend lizard."
That made the dragon laugh out loud. "Fair enough!" she said. "I can't argue with that, friend kitten. Are you ready for your question for the day?"
"I've been ready for a while," May groaned. "I'm feeling absolutely lazy. It practically feels like I'm on vacation, rather than mid-quest—"
The dragon blinked at her mildly.
Suddenly realizing how she sounded, May flushed, waving her hands. "Not that your challenge isn't something worthwhile," she said hurriedly. "Just that the amount of time you're letting me putter around on my own is making me realize how little I have to fill the day out here otherwise. Hunting and tending to Rutterkin and my gear... Ah, but I know you have your reason to spread it out like this. Whatever that reason is."
"A woman's mind takes time to be won over," the dragon said. "Surely you know that."
"In other words, I'm being assessed by the princess, whether or not I'm in the middle of answering your questions," May said bluntly.
"Just so," the dragon said, with another toothy smile. "Speaking of which?"
May sighed, reclining slightly and resting her weight on the palm of her hands. "At your leisure."
For a long moment, the dragon didn't say anything. She just looked at May, her silver eyes serious despite her continuing smile. It went on long enough that May began to shift uncomfortably, opening her own mouth to speak, when the dragon finally said,
"Yesterday, you said I wasn't a beast."
May blinked, off-kilter and still uncomfortable. "Yes? At least, not the way, say, Rutterkin is..."
"What is a human being?" the dragon asked. "What defines personhood? In what ways do you and I differ, or how do I differ from a beast like your Rutterkin?"
Another question without a specific answer, then. And, if anything, a weightier one than before. May had been expecting an escalation like that, but without the question itself, she'd had no way to prepare for what kind of intellectual exercise it would be.
She folded her hands together, feeling absently how they had been made soft from the oil. Instead of answering directly, she asked, "What is your name?"
The dragon had started to settle into her usual questioning pose, chin on her foremost feet, but at that, her head jerked up. "What?"
"Your name," May repeated, trying to sound patient rather than anxious. "I mean, you surely have one. Whether dragons name each other or not, you can't have lived with a princess all this time and just answered to 'you, dragon'."
"Perhaps the princess is like you," the dragon retorted, "and calls me lizard."
"Ah, and is she a kitten too?" May asked, knowing she was audibly impatient now. "If you don't have a name, just say so. But if you have one, I'd like to hear it."
The dragon hesitated a moment longer. Her position, head raised and slightly tilted, eyes wide, made her look strangely vulnerable—at least, for the enormous, dangerous carnivore she was. "Edelweiss," she said finally.
"Edelweiss," May repeated. It was an odd name for a dragon, let alone one with black and silver scales—the name itself was that of a small, white flower. But it was a common enough name, and besides, she was no kitten, and the dragon not really any lizard. The names people gave to each other were often just associations. "May I call you that, Edelweiss?"
"Ah, kitten, you'll make me have to call you 'Ismay', then," the dragon groaned. "Dame Wexley, even."
"You can say no," May said flatly, strangely embarrassed. "And you can still call me kitten if you want, or Ismay. But what friends I have call me May."
"If I call you 'May', does that make us friends?" the dragon asked, in an odd tone. Suddenly remote, unlike the parody of friendliness she'd been demonstrating.
May snorted. "We're destined to fight," she said. "You've agreed to it already. But I've fought with most of the friends I've had, too."
Edelweiss finally dropped her head again, resting her chin on the ground fully. It looked to May as though she was sulking a little. "You're not answering my question," she mumbled.
"I'm starting to, sort of," May said. "Because I can't just answer that... not that I'm giving up," she added hurriedly, "but even more than before, it's the sort of thing that people can spend their lives thinking about. There's a difference between personhood and personality—Rutterkin there is skittish about everything except battle, for example, but he's a mama's boy and he trusts me." Rutterkin's ears had perked up, head swiveling in their direction. May smiled. "And as you can see, he knows his name, since I've used it with him enough. He's got personality. And to some extent, he thinks. I mean, of course he thinks, but similar to how I'd say a person does."
"Go on," Edelweiss said, amusement creeping in around the sulk.
"Well," May said, "he draws a breath when he doesn't want to wear a saddle, to try to make sure it doesn't go on tight enough. Or he sidesteps being mounted. He knows when he's facing a threat, and like I said, it's pretty much only in actual battle that he won't cringe from that. He's full of himself and likes to try to push the other warhorses around, though they are, to a horse, braver than he is. All of this shows some sorts of decisions being made by him and conclusions being come to."
"He sounds charming," Edelweiss said dryly.
"But he's not a person," May said. "It's a simple sort of thinking."
"How do you know? He can't tell you," Edelweiss said.
May grimaced. "It's hard to put into words," she said. "It's the sort of thing you know when you're around horses for a long time. I imagine that undercuts my argument."
"It's nothing solid to base a discussion off of."
Sighing, May nodded. "I'll give you that. But if we're talking our experiences, and how they form our belief, it still... it's part of my experience. I know him, and horses in general, and what interests them."
"Is a 'person' something you can't know? Too big for that, unlike beasts?"
"Maybe," May said. "Maybe that's why those who come to love each other commit to an entire lifetime of trying to know each other."
"Romantic, kitten," Edelweiss said, grinning. "And what about a dragon? If I'm not a beast and I'm not a person—"
"Who said you weren't a person, Edelweiss?"
Edelweiss stared at her again, once more taken aback. "And they're not the same thing, human and person?"
"I'd thought they were," May said. "And then I met you, and I... I'm starting to know you. I suppose I'll have to keep learning what a human is, and what a person is, and what a beast is, and what we all have in common and where we all differ."
"You're a strange one, May," Edelweiss said, taken aback.
"I've been told that before," May agreed, and the smile on her face felt genuine this time.
*~*~*
That evening, May prepared to go out hunting, but before she could do more than start to arm herself appropriately, Edelweiss slithered into the clearing dragging a deer carcass in her strong jaws.
May hadn't even noticed her leave.
She gaped as Edelweiss spat the deer down between them and then coiled herself smugly, licking blood off her mouth. "There," she said. "I caught you dinner."
"I was thinking something a bit smaller for myself," May said, still disbelievingly. "I thought you ate with the princess, and had only been sharing mine for the company?"
"You could cook something for the princess, and I'd take it to her," Edelweiss said dismissively. "But I'd like to eat my share with you tonight."
May sighed, smiling a little despite herself, and put her weapons back in the tent. "Fair enough," she said. "Where did you even come from, though? I've been keeping an eye on the tower. Was it some sort of illusion you cast to make the hunting easier?"
That drew a loud, echoing laugh from the dragon. "What, do you think I'm some sort of enchantress? A dragon can move quietly when she wants to."
"I'd have thought a dragon has magical powers regardless," May said with interest, "being a magical creature and all. Is that wrong?"<
br />
"A dragon is just a dragon," Edelweiss said, strangely flustered—almost embarrassed. "Though I suppose it's a good thing if you fear me that little bit more."
"I suppose so," May said. She didn't feel afraid, and didn't suppose Edelweiss really thought she was.
It took a while for her to gut and portion the deer before putting the tenderer parts in her stew pot and grilling the rest. Although Edelweiss had been plenty help in finding the beast, she was certainly less so in preparing it.
But when it was ready, May served out a bowl of venison stew and a strip of grilled meat to accompany it for herself, as well as the same to bring to the princess. Edelweiss downed the rest in big gulps. "You've some appetite," May noted, "for someone who ate so lightly before."
"It's not appetite, it's greed," Edelweiss informed her happily. "I do prefer my meat cooked, and I'm enjoying the option to fill this large belly with it."
"Well, there's more than I can eat, and I've hardly got things set up to smoke it so I could make it last," May said. "Eat your fill."
It should have been threatening, watching Edelweiss tear into the meat like that, the scent of blood still hanging around them both. But under the circumstances, it mostly felt like a shared hospitality.
*~*~*
The second challenge began quietly: May had taken Rutterkin out for a ride, and was picking his hooves when Edelweiss slithered down her tower. The horse was at this point mostly used to the dragon, and although he let out a nervous huff, he didn't even jerk his hoof in May's grip.
Edelweiss curled up at the base of the tower, just watching, so May took the time to finish up grooming Rutterkin before dusting her hands off and coming over. "About time to start today?"
"About time," Edelweiss agreed, flicking her tongue.
She uncurled, and this time, she came closer to May than she had before, half-curling around her so that May could lean back against the long curve of her body if she wished to. She hesitated, a little alarmed by it, and then did so.
To the Victor Page 28
