Avalee and the Dragon

by Hamill, Patricia

  After another twenty minutes, the dragon stopped and waited for her to catch up. "Here is far enough."

  She nodded, guessing he would want to change back right away. Instead, he came to her and took her hands in his human ones, running his thumbs over her palms. She looked him in the eyes, and he looked back with a smile.

  "I am glad for today. Perhaps we will come again another time. You aren't still angry with me are you?"

  Avalee shook her head and tried to smile back, but her heart was doing flips in her chest, making it impossible to manage. He sighed and released her hands, his expression revealing little of the emotion behind it.

  "Come, let's prepare these for flight. The more we do before I change back, the easier it will be for you." He chuckled a little and then added, "I had no idea you were such a good haggler. This is a much larger load than I expected we'd have. More than I can carry in my claws. You'll have to strap some of it to my back."

  "Ok, just show me what you want me to do. Or tell me." She added the last, realizing he wouldn't be able to show her how or where to strap things once he was a dragon again. Already, she realized that the man before her seemed less of a man and more of a dragon, and she wondered if the beast had already begun the transformation. The skin seemed rougher, somehow, darker, almost green. She found herself sneaking looks at him even as she helped bind some of the packs together and put others in a larger satchel the dragon had produced from the one that they had brought with them to the village. The changes seemed more pronounced the longer they worked until, finally, he straightened and looked her way, and she realized no one could possibly mistake him for a man now.

  He looked like a lizard man. His eyebrows were gone, replaced with ridges that held expression just as well. His eyes were slightly larger and much fierier than they had been. His skin was darkly green, and she guessed that under his clothes, scales had sheathed him in the same way they did when he was a dragon.

  "You're changing back," she said aloud to him.

  He nodded. "Yes, and I must move away to finish it. It takes longer to change back, and I can feel that I am ready to grow." He reached for her again, and she wasn't quick enough to avoid him. His hands, palms anyway, were still smooth and felt human, but scales had already begun to grow from the backs, and his nails were lengthening as she watched, becoming claws. It made her skin crawl to watch it happening, even more so with him holding her while it happened. "I wish we had more time, but it is difficult to maintain, and nearly impossible to stop once I begin to change back."

  She looked up from his lengthening claws and her breath caught at the look in his eyes, totally inhuman, but full of something she couldn't quite identify. He was very close, having drawn her to him while she'd been absorbed with the changes in his hands.

  "You should let it happen then," she managed to say. If she had to guess, that look was longing. "Just release me first and let me get some distance. I don't want to be crushed."

  In an instant, the look was gone and replaced with amusement, and the dragon chuckled as it released her as she had asked. "Indeed, I do not wish to crush you either. Stay by the cart, I'll return in a moment."

  She turned away, not wanting to see it happen, but couldn't quite control the urge to take a look when she heard the groan and snap of trees behind her. She didn't see much of him, but she did see green scales along what she guessed was his side, and a claw that gripped and released the ground, tearing furrows into the otherwise orderly and well-trodden path. The next people to travel this way would find them and wonder at the beast who might have made them.

  Then the beast was back, and she watched as it made an effort to smooth over the damage it had done, though nothing could be done about the saplings it had flattened or the trunks it had snapped while transforming in the cramped place.

  "That should be enough," it said, examining its work before turning to look at her. Its teeth bared quickly in what she knew to be a smile, but that smile disappeared when it saw the look on her face. Avalee realized that she had been frowning at him and tried to school her expression.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just strange to see you change."

  "I see." It looked away and then said, "Please load the parcels. Do you remember where they go?"

  "Yes," Avalee replied as she began the task.

  The dragon sat perfectly still as she worked, and she had no trouble finding the places he'd described and securing the smaller packs to them. Soon, all that remained were the two larger ones that the dragon planned to carry in its claws, and Avalee stepped back to inspect her work one last time. She'd argued hard for these things and didn't want to risk losing any of them when they took flight.

  "Finished," she said after tugging at one last strap. The dragon had likely guessed that, but it felt good for her to say it aloud, and without waiting for a reply, she climbed into place and gripped tightly. "Let's go home."

  She felt a rumble in the dragon's body, a nonverbal reply in the affirmative, and it leapt, catching the wind with a powerful down stroke of wings that barely cleared the branches of the remaining trees alongside the path. Soon, it was turning, and she felt the warmth of late afternoon sun against her back as they straightened and soared towards the cave. Towards home, such as it was.

  ~~~

  Chapter 17

  They landed at the entrance to the cave, on the ledge overlooking the water, not at the top of the cliff where Avalee had guessed the dragon would land. She was grateful for this, mostly because she didn't really want to try to carry everything down the steep stairs that led down from there.

  The dragon allowed her to pull everything off of him, and then he surprised her by leaping off of the edge and flying away over the water. She stared after him until he looped around and disappeared from sight around the edge of the island. Then she sighed and resigned herself to the fact that she would have to carry everything in on her own.

  She eyed it all for a little while, trying to decide what was important and what could stay here for now. The sandwich and tea were long gone, and she was hungry and thirsty. After touching a few random items and considering what she had, she decided on the bread, eggs and milk, and just one apple and began the trip down the ramp. The fire was down to embers, but enough to see by, and she hoped it was also enough to coax back into a proper flame. There was a reason she'd selected what she had for the first trip down.

  Sometime later she felt a gust of wind and looked up to catch the break in light as the dragon swooped into the cave and began its descent. She looked back to the pan where she was frying her eggs and ignored him, even when he landed and came near. Even when she felt the sulfuric touch of his breath as he exhaled.

  "Well?" he asked after a while.

  "Well what?" she replied looking over at him.

  "Are you happy to be back?"

  "Do I have to answer that?" She smirked in his direction. "I'd be happier if you'd stayed to help bring everything in."

  A draconic shrug met that statement, and the dragon grinned back. "I brought some down."

  She noted that he had indeed dropped several parcels nearby before coming to rest near the fire. "Thanks."

  "There are a few more, but I can bring them later." The beast watched her closely.

  "Ok," she said, but she didn't really feel like talking. She was tired.

  "Do you wish me to leave?"

  She looked back at him. His brow ridge was lifted over one eye, but the teeth were showing, so she knew he was teasing her. "No, I just want to know why you would want to stay like that around me when you could be a human."

  "I am a dragon."

  Avalee scraped at the eggs and shifted the pan on the fire to get the flames even underneath it. "But I am not, and now that I know you can change, I thought you might want to..."

  She stopped talking and pulled the pan off of the fire, taking it to a low table that sat along the cave wall. She scraped the eggs onto a plate. They never stayed together for her, and
looked a mess now.

  "Might want to what, Avalee?" the dragon prompted. She looked over her shoulder at it and sighed.

  "Nothing, I suppose. You are a dragon, as you say. Why would you want to be a human?"

  She took the plate and began to skirt around the edge of the fire pit towards the tunnel that led to her room. Before she left it, though, she grabbed a torch and lit it on the flames to light her way. She made it about half way before the flame leapt in hand and she found the cause crouching in her way, the dragon's massive body blocking the tunnel entirely.

  "You prefer me as a human, then?" it asked.

  "I prefer you to move aside so I can eat these before they grow cold." She would have put a hand on her hip, but with torch in one hand and plate in the other, she hadn't one to spare.

  "I can change into one if you prefer," the dragon rumbled at her.

  "You said it was hard to maintain," she retorted, and then added, "Now, please, move aside. I wasn't kidding about the eggs. I don't like them cold."

  It chuckled and shifted just a little, but enough for Avalee to push past it; though the scales on its shoulders caught at her dress as she did.

  When she got to her room, she sat on her bed and began to eat. But she wondered now at the need for a more substantial barrier, a proper door with a lock. If the dragon could change and decided it wanted to, she didn't want it walking in on her unannounced. A whole new set of problems she had to consider began to sweep through her mind. She remembered the look it had given her as it waited on the edge of transformation, back on the path. The look he had given her. She set aside the remainder of the eggs on the poorly repaired side table and lay back on the bed, legs hanging over the edge.

  A whole new set of problems, and now she'd lost her appetite.

  ~~~

  Chapter 18

  Avalee woke later to fully cold eggs and burning eyes. She felt as if she hadn't slept quite long enough, but had slept longer than she'd intended. She guessed that most of the night had passed.

  She picked up her plate and gave the eggs a couple of pokes before deciding to go ahead and eat them, doing so quickly and trying to ignore the chill. The cave had grown cold, and the torch was out, but she found that she had no trouble perceiving her surroundings. Over the last month, she'd found seeing in the darkness of the cave had become easier. She'd only used the torch earlier because being outside all day had taken some of that ability from her. Avalee was happy that such was no longer the case, and set the empty plate back down so she could rummage for a change of clothes in her drawers.

  The dress she was wearing had become ripe from all the travel and labor she'd done while wearing it, and she was eager to get out of it. The neat bundle of clothes in one hand and shoes in the other, she followed the tunnel deeper in, passing the oven room, the pantry, Elisa’s old room, and the small storage room. There were a few other inconsequential alcoves to which she paid no mind. Her goal was the hot springs she’d found shortly after her arrival.

  A faint warming breath brushed against her exposed skin when she finally reached it. Surprisingly faint for inside was a steamy furnace. Having learned her lesson the first time she came across this boon, she stripped down just outside the door and left her clean clothing on a low stool she’d placed there just for this purpose.

  Once inside, sweat blossomed from her skin, almost enough to do the trick all on its own, but the springs awaited. Perpetually clear, a haze of mist filling the surrounding room, the springs seemed to circulate through the shallow pool, in and then out, a constantly running stream of which only this small portion was visible. Avalee used the water for everything—cooking, drinking, but especially bathing.

  She slipped into the water and wasted no time washing away the travel, though she could have easily lost hours in the relaxing ripple of current that swirled about her. She scrubbed at her skin and used some of the soap Elisa had left behind to lather up her hair. Eyes closed, she slipped under the water briefly and used her fingers to clean her scalp, and all of the lather and grit was swept away. She emerged gasping; the water, while soothing, was almost too hot to bear, particularly when ducking under.

  She’d never had such problems back home. Baths there were taken in a tub outside in a rickety shack. Her family was lucky enough to have a well, and her father had installed a pump that could be used to fill the tub directly. Chill, clear water, unlike the hot springs, had always encouraged family members, Avalee included, to speed through their ablutions.

  After rinsing and squeezing the thick cloth she’d used beneath the water, she wrung it out and draped it over the rocky edge of the pool. Then she rose, dripping, and stepped out of the water. She didn’t linger in the steamy room, not wanting to sweat any more now that she was clean, and stopped where she’d left her clothes just outside the room and began to dry off.

  That done, she shrugged into a dress, drew on some warm stockings, slipped on her shoes, and made her way out to the main cave to stir up the fire and get the cavern, or at least that small corner of it, warmed up. She wondered at the cold and how much worse it was likely to be once winter kicked in.

  Avalee hoped she wouldn't have to start sleeping out there in the main cave, but she worried that she might if it meant the difference between a warm fire and a frigid death in her bed. She was surprised to find the fire well stoked and crackling merrily, and sank next to it gratefully before looking around for the likely culprit. The cave was empty, though. The dragon must have flamed the fuel and fed it with a few logs, recently by the look of them, and then left the cave to do whatever it did.

  She returned her attention to warming her hands and lost herself in the dancing flames. A daydream bloomed in her mind, or perhaps a premonition based on facts learned the day before. In it, the dragon stood beside her in a forest clearing, and the Lady Aramere waited nearby with a spare horse, as she had for Elisa ten years past. Avalee looked on at the horse and back at the dragon as it watched her. She tried to understand why she didn't rush to her freedom. But then, Avalee realized that she was trying to decide whether or not she wanted freedom. Trying to decide if she wouldn't much rather stay with the dragon. That was when she snapped out of the dream and realized she'd fallen asleep again, dozing lightly beside the fire. It had burned down a little, telling her that she'd been out for a while, and already the dream faded, all but the look in the dragon's eyes. A look of hope that had no place being there.

  Avalee shuddered and turned away from the fire, peering into the darkness of the cave. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust enough to confirm that she was still alone. The odd direction her thoughts and dreams had taken disturbed her, and she wanted nothing more than to forget them, push them out and stamp on them so they wouldn't return.

  She had an obligation to her people to remain with the dragon for ten years, or to ensure that it was unable to act against them if she didn't. But each day the choices open to her clouded just a little more. Captor, friend. Dragon, man. She wasn't sure any more what she wanted, and she wasn't sure what the dragon wanted.

  Avalee looked up towards the cavern entrance and saw the telltale signs of dawn; it was brightest then, the sun aiming its warmth and light directly into the opening as it rose above the water to begin its journey for that day. Seeing it, Avalee decided she needed more time above. Today she would travel to the clearing; though the flowers were likely gone now. There would be peace there, and light. And no dragons.

  Decision made, Avalee made preparations. She returned down the tunnel to the pantry and gathered some food for breakfast and lunch: one of the prized apples, a hefty chunk of the bread and a few radishes. She also sliced off a portion of the cured meat she'd stored in the coldest of the rooms. She brought enough for the whole day, not wanting to return to find the dragon waiting for her. Not wanting to return and find her way back out blocked. It had kept to its end of the deal, but after yesterday, she had a feeling it might want to change things up, and Avalee was not ready to face t
hat discussion.

  Last night it had come awfully close to blocking her with its insistence that she tell it whether she preferred it a human and the way it had barely pulled aside to allow her to pass.

  She tucked the food into the pack, rolled up a blanket to lie upon once she reached the clearing, and filled a stoppered jug with water from a rain barrel that caught moisture from a system of troughs that led down from outside—preferable to the spring water in taste, though not as reliable. Then, for good measure, she tied on the sword.

  The trip up was easier than it had been that first day, and she made it quickly. Still, at the top, she paused to check for the dragon out on the ledge before stepping out. She glanced towards the sunrise, shielding her eyes and not quite looking directly at the sun. Such a beautiful thing. Too bad it was painful to behold.

  She took in a deep breath and blew it out, tugged at the straps holding the pack on her back, and turned away from the dazzling colors. With hands and feet, she climbed up the stairs and peeked over the edge. No dragon. After that, she was on her way, stepping lightly along the path, pleased that she'd managed a temporary escape—a day alone for a change.

  The tingle of energy was expected, though still strange to Avalee, and she couldn't help but wonder about it. It was only here—along the path and in the clearing—that it buzzed along her skin, though she suspected that some measure of it was present in the cave itself.

  The fallen leaves rustled beneath her feet as she made her way, her legs crashing through piles here and there and sending them scattering. Avalee enjoyed the trip almost as much as she expected to enjoy the destination, and then she reached the clearing and stopped right at the edge, staring in surprise. The flowers were still there, the bees buzzing, sunlight filtering down warmly.

  Avalee looked over her shoulder at the trail, cold, leaf strewn. And she looked back at the clearing, flower filled, a gentle breeze brushing along the petals. The only hint of autumn in the clearing was the presence of a few stray leaves from the trees surrounding it. Just a few, but the wind seemed to sweep them right through and out almost as soon as they landed.