Dragonfriend

by Marc Secchia

  Lia muttered, “Your wing surface is amazing. Are these all tiny muscles along here? Get your muzzle out of the way, silly.”

  Shards take it, straw-head, I’ll bite you if you make a single mistake with that needle.

  “Will you pack the fangs away?”

  A Dragon’s wing has three joints, Flicker began in his pompous lecturing tone, pointing at them with his tongue.

  Hold still, she replied in Dragonish.

  He sniffed, Listen to your teacher, you ignorant talking ape.

  Shall I sew your lips together? Lia replied, with her sweetest smile.

  How’s about I chew your flapping ears into an actually pretty shape? The dragonet seemed pleased by her rippling laughter. Now, the shoulder joint is also the primary wing joint, anchoring the major flight muscles to the keel bone of the chest. The secondary wing joint is akin to your elbow, but it bends forward through one hundred and ten degrees or more, and can be fixed in place by the action of the muscles. And the tertiary joint here, toward the end, is like your wrist, but much more useful, of course.

  Oh, of course, Hualiama put in, biting her lip as she concentrated.

  Each joint adjusts individually. The arteries which feed the muscles and wing membranes run along a groove in the inner side of the wing bones, where they are best protected. Flicker flared his wing struts at the end of his wing. Ancillary muscles work the wing struts, allowing the entire surface an unparalleled adaptability of movement during flight. Do you understand so far?

  Enough. Lia was pleased. Her Dragonish was starting to come much more naturally now, although he still used words she did not understand. How’s this?

  Adequate, I suppose, as far as Human work goes.

  Lia bared her teeth at the wall. For a creature who had saved her life, Flicker could rile her like stinging-nettle rash.

  During this healing time, Lia’s thoughts turned to the outside world. She observed the Fra’aniorian Dragonships flying by overhead on a regular patrol schedule, and reasoned that Ra’aba now exerted absolute control over the Island-Cluster. Her situation was hopeless. Marooned, she was powerless to leave the Island unless she could grow wings of her own. Should she leave, she had no allies. Should the Dragons find her living on their holy Island … Hualiama sighed. Yet, she was daily gaining proficiency in Dragonish. Surely that gave her an edge, even a tiny one?

  When a Dragon wished to crush her beneath its impossibly enormous paw, she could plead for her life in fluent Dragonish. Bravo!

  Flicker was a strange one. Lia grew accustomed to him flying away to be with his warren, but sometimes at night, she missed the warmth of a curled-up dragonet. Where did he sneak off to for hours on end? And how, by the fires of Fra’anior itself, did he know so much about Humans?

  One night, Lia pretended to be asleep so that she could watch for his departure. He flew deeper into the caves, not up-Island to meet his family. Odd. Should she confront him about it? Or just keep her impertinent nose where it belonged? Flicker could be touchy about the most unexpected subjects, such as his habit of slurping up intestines, or the way he cracked the knuckles of his paws, which invariably made her wince. Perhaps she could try to follow him?

  The following day, Lia was bathing in the warm pool, singing to herself as she rubbed a natural soapstone on her legs, when a flight of dragonets swooped into the cave, all a-chatter with excitement–perhaps a dozen in number, mostly reds, but she also saw yellow and two light-green, almost identical dragonets among them. Lia had not realised how much dragonets’ shades could vary, but seeing all the reds together, she immediately picked out a range of colours from coppery red through to a deep burgundy. Several dragonets had underparts which were definitely more orange than pale cream.

  A pretty yellow dragonet sang out, Found you, Flicker!

  Another dragonet gasped, A naked ape! Look, every dragonet!

  A chorus of alarm rang out. Leaping eggshells … by my mother’s paws … disgusting … it stinks … careful, it might be dangerous!

  At the top of his lungs, Flicker shouted, Quiet, you troop of chattering monkeys! She’s friendly. Don’t scare her and she won’t harm you.

  Flicker, what’re you doing with this creature? the yellow dragonet demanded.

  Flicker flickering flick flick, chattered one of the reds.

  Is this your pet, Flicker? Are you keeping a pet?

  In seconds, a dozen curious pairs of eyes ringed Lia. Half of the dragonets perched on the edges of the warm pool or clung to the walls, while the others zoomed around her at high speed, enjoying a game of aerial acrobatics. Hualiama wished she could follow their rapid-fire chirping. Clearly, she was an object of great wonder and speculation. She began to cover her breasts with her hands before halting the movement with a chuckle. Dragonets cared nothing for nudity–all they had was Dragon hide, and that suited them perfectly well. Could this be Flicker’s family? Hualiama observed them curiously, trying to separate the slender, quicksilver females from the slightly more thickset males, noting the differences in musculature and facial features and scale-patterns.

  Flicker was clearly vexed, breathing out sharp gasps of fire and flaring his wings at his fellows. Go away, he snarled, baring his fangs. She’s my pet. Leave us alone.

  To Lia’s surprise, the chattering died away as the dragonets appeared to communicate as a group, without need for speech. She sank down in the water in order to present a less threatening posture. The scrolls said to do this in the event of a rajal attack. Presumably, whoever wrote that scroll had been eaten immediately, or should have been for offering such advice, for a rajal was a coal-black feline common to the Islands of Fra’anior which stood taller than Lia at the shoulder. Rajals were not known for their delicate table manners.

  The pretty female, a striking yellow topaz colour with amber detail on her wing struts, spine spikes, claws and muzzle, minced toward Flicker with what Lia took to be a coquettish air. He mock-charged her, but the female stood her ground, her fiery orbs alight with curiosity. Whatever aggression had flared between them appeared to blow over, for they rubbed muzzles, took a fluttering dance-step together, and touched wingtips, left and right.

  Flicker turned to Hualiama, saying, This is Shimyal, a member of my warren. She was concerned about my lengthy absences.

  Lia smiled thinly. Fiery greetings, little one.

  Shimyal shook her head. These animals speak?

  I’m teaching her.

  Lia understood this little exchange, and was distinctly unimpressed. The female seemed equally underwhelmed, volleying a tirade of chirps at Flicker which had the unmistakable air of a reprimand. Without thinking, Lia bared her teeth at the dragonet.

  Danger! Shimyal squealed. The dragonets took off in a swarm, mobbing her; Hualiama fell backward into the water, protecting her face lest any of those razor-sharp talons seek her eyes, as Flicker had attacked the windroc. The dragonets dived underwater with ease. She received sharp cuts on her head, arms and back. In moments, red clouded the pool, before the dragonets suddenly reversed course and fled. Lia broached, coughing water out of her lungs.

  Flicker? Flicker, what just happened?

  The dragonet chased his kin out of the cave before returning with a patently smug air. I told them you’d curse them with an unspeakably horrible Human disease.

  A … what? She did not understand entirely, but it sounded unwise.

  I just saved your hide!

  The Human girl flinched as his flame heated the skin of her knee. Sorry, Flicker. She added, “I made a royal mess of that. Will you be alright? Your family, I mean?”

  * * * *

  It was as he had feared. Flicker knew that this news would be with the warren-mother within an hour. Lia’s cuts appeared to be superficial. She needed to fend for herself.

  I must go, he said, firmly.

  He tried not to dwell upon how clouded her eyes appeared as he winged out of the cave. Flicker beat his wings furiously
, trying to catch up with his warren-brothers and sisters as they bolted skyward, fleeing as though a hundred windrocs snapped at their tails. He scented their fear. Fool! He should not have spoken so unwisely. Lia could not curse anyone or any creature. She simply did not have it in her. But what he knew, his superstitious brethren did not. They believed every word.

  Three vertical miles he chased them, far to the north of the cave where he had left Hualiama, and still he could not catch them all. He overtook Seroth and Gleam and Dynoc the green dragonet, but none of the others, who were quicker flyers than he. He crossed through the layers of air that sometimes seemed to collect around the volcano, each trapping their particular fragrances, pollens and grits within a narrow horizontal band. Storms broke up those bands, but they quickly re-established themselves. Flicker passed through a patch of jiista-berry pollen so thick it caused him a sneezing-fit, before orienting rapidly on the clump of obsidian boulders which marked his warren’s territory.

  No hope now.

  Flicker flashed across the cliff, cutting his approach as finely as he dared, before flicking his wings to bank ninety degrees. He shot beneath the fallen giant draggor tree which concealed their warren’s entrance and barrelled straight into four guards holding up a rude net.

  Shards! Flicker screeched, striking the tunnel wall hard.

  Tangled in the netting, he stood little chance against four older dragonets. He was smaller but stronger than any of them, but had too much respect for his elders to do more than submit to the symbolic bite just behind his skull-spikes.

  The warren-mother will see you, young Flicker, said the oldest of the four, called Windstorm. Will you come willingly?

  I obey, he replied automatically. If he did not, he would be cast out, warren-less, without hope of finding a mate or a territory in which to settle.

  Windstorm nodded. Remove the net. Escort him to Mother Lyrica.

  The acrid odour of fear and disquiet already drifted up the tunnels. Flicker’s scales prickled with a Dragon sense. He knew the interview was not about to proceed in his favour. What lie could he tell? None. Lyrica would sniff it out in a wing-flip. He could only put on a show of meekness and hope that Lyrica’s punishment would not be too severe.

  They moved as a group through the warm, dry warren tunnels, the two older dragonets jostling him from behind so that Flicker was forced to keep a dragonet’s sharp eye out lest he tread on the tails of the two ahead. This was a lesson impressed on hatchlings as soon as they left the shell. Respect the elders. Give their wings and tails a courteous berth. As they passed the living tunnels and birthing chambers, Flicker became aware of many a watching eye, a whisper of comment and disbelief that accompanied his progress into the centre of the warren, to the place of the hive-mind.

  Even here, a slight breeze kept the air fresh. A careful, aeons-old design of multiple adjustable inlets and outlets ensured adequate ventilation of the warren. They came to a cavern larger than any other, lit by magical, refractive crystals which lent the cavern a creepy, shifting appearance, never still, ever bathed in dancing rainbows.

  As Flicker entered the throne-cavern he saw the warren-mother Lyrica crouched upon a pedestal formed from a single flower-like ruby. At five feet in length the elderly red dragonet hulked over him, for dragonets grew throughout their lives. She regarded him gravely above the bowed backs of her subservient Twelve, the communal mind-members–those dragonets who were old and no longer fit to fly, who served the warren with their minds, at the expense of their bodies. All they knew was to open their mouths for food and water, and that others took care of their needs.

  Lyrica’s eyes burned with the power of the Twelve within her, and when she spoke, he heard many echoes in the timbre of her mental voice, voices within voices. Flicker. This has gone too far.

  He bowed his muzzle to the stone. Mother Lyrica.

  Will you share your memories with us, that we might judge what has been?

  She phrased this as a question, but coming from Mother Lyrica, it was also an immutable command. Nevertheless, a spark of an idea leaped into Flicker’s mind.

  I obey, he said, and prepared a sequence of the right memories for her.

  Chapter 6: Forging Friendship

  A Day Passed by without any sign of the dragonet. Anger pushed Lia harder than any other day of late. She worked through her dance routines as though her body were Ra’aba, needing to be whipped for past misdeeds, leaping and spinning with a vengeance, repeating difficult pirouettes and holding balance positions until her muscles trembled from fatigue–the flying Dragon, the back-arching trout, the forward and sideways splits, the split-balance called the spear in which she balanced on one leg and raised the other behind her until it pointed straight at the cavern’s ceiling, toes extended.

  Perfection. She demanded perfection.

  Lia progressed to her warrior exercises. Handstand press-ups still pulled horribly on her right arm where it had been broken, and she could do only five chin-ups on a rocky ledge within the cave, whereas previously she could have managed twenty-five.

  She was weak!

  Hualiama stalked out of the cave. Emptiness.

  She stormed back inside again. How could she have been so stupid? How could he? Moodily, she drew circles in the sand with her big toe. Right, abdominal crunches, aiming to extended her daily total to three hundred. Ten for Shyana, ten for Chalcion, ten for Elki …

  Peer at the cave entrance. Flicker might as well have been eaten by a windroc.

  Like it or not, Lia worried about Flicker. She pressed her fingers to her temples, failing to fathom the feelings churning so fiercely inside of her breast. As ever, Lia felt as though she strived for the unattainable, that if she could only wish strongly enough, a locked and barred door within her soul would burst open and all would be … glorious. Light. Touched by the insignia of fire. She would not feel chained in spirit, trapped within her own skin, but rather, there would be an indefinable sense of freedom, a knowledge akin to wind rustling unseen through trees. Often, this yearning emerged in her dance. Step faster. Soar higher. Grace drawn from the spirit of flame, juxtaposed with the limitations of ordinary flesh. Always, she wept for what she could not touch.

  Stopping to pant, to strike the wetness off her cheeks. Weak! How could she hope to stand against the Roc when mere dance reduced her to stupid, girlish tears?

  Soaring again, pirouetting and flaring the left leg, now a spin, ignoring the tugging sensation across her scarred back, springing into a looping somersault, legs elegantly extended and toes pointed in imitation of a Dragon’s wings … if only the air would not refuse her entreaties and choose, just this once, to bear her aloft! What more did she desire?

  Flicker. All was not well. Lia stepped into the golden rays of a fragrant Fra’aniorian afternoon, the scents so thick and redolent on the breeze, she imagined she could stretch out her arms and scoop up great handfuls, stuffing them greedily into her mouth. Unbidden, her head turned to the north. She drew a breath through her pathetic, inadequate nostrils, right into the roots of her lungs.

  Flicker, my darling. Where are you?

  If she could have cut out her heart and sent it winging away to him, she would have. He needed her. She knew it as deeply as her bones knew their need for marrow.

  Pensively, Hualiama’s footsteps turned to the cave. If she could do nothing else, she would explore deeper beneath the Island. Perhaps she would discover something useful.

  * * * *

  Flicker waited in his cell.

  There was no door to the small underground chamber, located off a quiet corridor of the warren, nor was there need of one. Tradition and expectation bound a dragonet more surely than any Human chains or locks. The communal hive-mind saw to that. It saw all, pervaded all, and judged all, just as he was surely being judged by Mother Lyrica and her Twelve and being found guilty of behaviour unbecoming of his kind. He threatened the harmony. He brought the imbalance of original thought
and unsettling perspectives to the gentle, never-changing thrum of the warren, as though his music conveyed a different pulse, being strident or discordant in ways he did not entirely understand.

  No behaviour of an individual dragonet should ever threaten the sanctity and security of the warren. He could only hope that respect for the Ancient One would temper their judgement.

  Was it so evil of him to have plucked an injured Human girl from the air? Perhaps not, but what had followed would terrify them–just as he, when he looked to his Dragon fires, felt at once alarmed and exhilarated. Dragonets should not keep Humans for pets. Dragonets should not treat a Human’s wounds, nor teach them civilised speech. Roost with a Human? That lay beyond the Isle of sanity.

  A scratching of claws heralded Shimyal’s arrival.

  He read accusation in her gaze and hurt in the tilt of her wings. Flicker, she said. What of us?

  What indeed? Once, a promise made by their egg-mothers. A lifelong friendship, yet the seven ascending degrees of fire-promises had always remained unspoken between them–never needing to be spoken, he had assumed. That was a mistake. Flicker’s hearts burbled in his chest and throat as he studied the details of Shimyal’s stance, noting the slight vibration in her wings and the deep apricot tones visible in her eyes. Clearly, she had spoken the fire-promises in her third heart.

  That creature has bewitched your hearts, Flicker, said Shimyal.

  Flicker said, She is a Human and can never mean more to me than one of my kind.

  Truth did not dwell in his words. Shimyal knew it, for her talons clenched as though she intended to spring at him. Flicker would have welcomed a physical punishment. What Mother Lyrica intended would injure much more surely and profoundly, in places claw and talon could never reach.

  Shimyal spat, You must choose between the Human and me, Flicker.

  The sudden flare of her fire made him flinch. How could he choose? He was bound to the ways of dragonets as surely as he was born a dragonet.