Dragon Kin: Lily & Oceana

by Audrey Faye

  “Already done.” Karis smiled. “Go show your dragon her new bathtub.”

  Chapter 10

  Lily threw an arm over her face, protesting the sun in her eyes. It couldn’t possibly be morning yet, and morning was never this bright. Her bed was very specifically placed to avoid just this eye-aching occurrence.

  Then she remembered that her bed had been moved, carried down to the waterside tent by several helpful villagers. Lily was pretty sure they’d just wanted the latest troublesome dragon cleared out of town. She ratcheted one eye open, looking for the distinctive blue-green of the troublemaker she’d bonded with. Instead, she discovered she was staring up at the roof of the tent, and her left arm felt very strange.

  She found enough wits to roll toward the limb that was hanging off the edge of the bed, lifting her numb fingers up and peering at them. They were wet. There shouldn’t be water in her tent. She blinked, trying to get the gears in her head to do something other than clank together and make a lot of noise. Then she spied the small, rock-lined channel of water that ran right in the open side of the tent and stopped at the edge of her bed.

  That had been Kellen’s idea.

  Lily vaguely remembered lying down for a nap before dinner, fingers in the channel, comforted by the sleepy feel of her dragon settling in for a nap of her own. She cast a glance at the sky. They were well into the middle of the morning, which meant she’d slept through dinner, a full night, and a good chunk of the next day besides.

  She peered at her fingers, which were as soggy as pond-frog toes, and stuck them back in the water. Still surprisingly warm. And happily, containing a dragon. One who was most certainly not asleep, however.

  At least she wasn’t off haunting somebody’s bathtub. Lily stretched, groaned, rubbed her eyes, and managed to swing her feet off the bed. The ground felt cool under her bare toes. She rubbed her eyes one more time and stood, walking to the edge of the tent.

  A low chirring sound, almost like a purr, greeted her. Oceana, lounging on a flat rock at the edge of the pool, tail in the water, soaking in the morning sun.

  Lily greeted curious black eyes and felt more solid than she had in days. Those were eyes that were happy to see her, no matter how precarious their bond felt. She sat down beside the flat rock and reached one hand for a scaled chin, the other into the water. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

  Two puffy snorts that felt like laughter.

  It lifted something in Lily’s chest. “You’ve been up since the crack of dawn, have you?” She cast a glance at a low wood block just inside the tent and the sparkling clean plate sitting on it. “I suppose that means you ate my dinner.”

  Three snorts this time—and a very clear vision of what the plate had looked like before all the food had disappeared.

  Lily raised a stern eyebrow, but it was hard not to be amused. “You were supposed to share that.”

  Another picture, this one of Lily flat on her back in the bed, one arm dangling over the edge, snoring as loudly as a bear.

  Lily groaned and hoped that one was an exaggeration. “Let’s get clean, and then we can wander up to the village for some breakfast.” However nice sleeping by a pool of warm water might be, it lacked most of the other basic necessities of life, including something for her rumbling belly.

  Oceana stretched out and lowered her head onto the rock.

  Lily stroked her dragon’s eye crests with a firm finger, just how Lotus liked it. “You’d rather stay here, would you?” Not a surprise, but a worry. The pool was beautiful, but in some ways, it felt a bit like moving to a fancier ruin. Out of the way. Excluded. Which was the last thing her dragon needed.

  Lily sighed and set her chin on her knees. It wasn’t really what a cranky water elf needed either. She’d worked hard to become a welcome and necessary part of the village. This felt like a big step backwards in her own life too.

  She picked her chin back up. This was only temporary, until they could get Oceana more used to fire-breathing dragons. And at least it came with good swimming. She slid her fingers back into the water. “I’ll go get us some breakfast. You stay right here.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  The gruff voice from behind had her turning in surprise. Irin walked down the low rise, bearing a tray in one hand and a pitcher in the other. He nodded at her, and at the small dragon on the rocks. “Kellen thought the two of you might be hungry.”

  Oceana watched him carefully, but she didn’t move.

  Progress. Lily ran over to take the pitcher, inhaling the smell of warm spiced cider. It would go perfectly with the food piled high on the tray. Bread, cheese, hardboiled eggs, a bowl of spiced stew meat, and at least half a dozen fruit pastries. Plenty to tempt a hungry dragon and her elf.

  Irin set the tray down on a low rock and casually sat down between Oceana and the food.

  Lily grinned—apparently he was smarter than she was when it came to leaving food unsupervised. She slid a thick slice of cheese between two pieces of bread, tucked her makeshift sandwich in one hand, and held out a piece of spiced stew meat to Oceana with the other.

  Her dragon sniffed and wrinkled her nose, eyeing the bread and cheese instead.

  Irin chuckled. “Kellen figured she wouldn’t like that. Hot and spicy. Too much like fire.”

  Kellen was seriously smart. Lily broke off a piece of fruit pastry instead. They already knew Oceana liked those.

  “You can save the stew for Kis.” Irin leaned back against a rock. “It’s one of his favorites.”

  Lily looked up from her food, wide-eyed. “Kis is coming here?” The old dragon rarely left the nursery. His war wounds pained him too much, and Lily was pretty sure the sight of the open sky he couldn’t fly in anymore did too.

  Irin nodded slowly. “He is. Something about a job that needed a warrior to get it done right.”

  Irin’s face was solemn, but his eyes looked pleased. Lily swallowed her mouthful of bread and cheese and looked at her dragon. Kis might not be able to fly, but he was as full of fire as any dragon she knew. “What’s he going to do?” Helping Oceana fit into the village didn’t seem like a job for a dragon who puffed smoke every time he got irritated—which was most of the time.

  “He’s coming to talk to her.” Irin reached for a slice of bread and cheese.

  Lily gulped. Oceana’s head shot up, looking over the warm pool to the large clearing on the other side. The one that had been specifically made big enough for the dragons who came to heat the pool. They could hear the sounds of branches and grasses trampled under a heavy, moving body.

  Lily scrambled to her feet just in time to see Kis reach the edge of the clearing. He walked with a tilt, favoring his most tattered wing and a leg that had once held so many arrows it had resembled a pincushion.

  He didn’t resemble one now. He lumbered into the clearing, the bright morning sun at his back turning his yellow scales a burnished gold color.

  Lily smiled at his golden eyes. “You look really beautiful today.”

  Irin snorted. “Keep insulting him and he’ll turn right back around and leave.”

  Lily didn’t take her words back. All dragons liked to be told they were pretty, even the toughest ones. Alonia proved that every single day. Kis looked almost proud, arching his neck to catch the best light.

  Irin snorted again. “Fine, you old boot. You don’t look terrible, for once.”

  Lily snuck a glance at Oceana, who curled up at attention on her rock, but didn’t show any immediate signs of taking to sky, water, or the forest beyond. Which was good, because Fendellen wasn’t around to chase her anymore. Belatedly, Lily remembered her manners and dropped into a crouch, putting her fingers in the water. “Oceana, this is Kis, revered dragon warrior and kin to Irin.” Then she eyed the big dragon and let herself feel proud too. “Kis, this is Oceana. She is my dragon.”

  The words hung in the air, feeling deep and important. Oceana wasn’t at all distant. She paid absolute attention, and her eyes had
n’t left the big dragon shining in the morning light. Slowly, she sat up and flared her neck crest, turning it to catch the rays of the sun just as Kis had done.

  Irin snorted, but very quietly. “Really, old man? That’s what you’re going to teach her first?”

  Kis blew an impressive amount of smoke out his nose.

  Oceana hissed, and Lily dove to grab her before she went anywhere. She wrapped her arms around her quivering dragon and held on tight. “It’s just smoke.” She glared at Kis. “He won’t make fire unless he warns us first.”

  Irin leaned back against his rock, clearly leaving this lesson, whatever it was, up to Kis.

  The old dragon tilted his head and snorted smoke again.

  Oceana hissed, but it wasn’t quite as determined this time.

  Irin suddenly sat up straighter, lifted an eyebrow at the gold dragon. “Don’t push it, old man. This isn’t weapons training on the battlefront.”

  Those were scary words from a man who regularly scared the demons out of all of them. Lily eyed Kis. There was only one reason Irin would be that alarmed. “He’s going to breathe fire, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” Irin’s voice had the kind of calm it always had right before a storm. “He wants to heat up the water again. Says it’s gone cold.”

  It was still nicely lukewarm, but Lily knew exactly how futile it was to get a cranky dragon to change his mind. She clamped down on the squirming dragon in her arms and nodded at Kis. They might as well get it over with. “Maybe he can toast me a cheese sandwich while he’s at it.” Lotus did that sometimes, and the melted cheese on the crunchy bread was one of her favorite treats.

  Maybe Oceana would like it too.

  Irin started to shake his head and stopped, casting her a surprised glance. “That’s not bad thinking, missy.”

  Lily gritted her teeth. She wasn’t an entirely brainless elf. Food was the way to her dragon’s heart—or it had been thus far, at least. She loosened her grip on Oceana while Irin quickly soaked a stick and impaled some bread and cheese on the end.

  Lily blinked at his efficient movements. Clearly they weren’t the first ones to have discovered dragon-toasted sandwiches.

  Ready, he held it up and nodded at his dragon. Lily took a good, firm hold of hers, catching her breath as the clicks that came before fire sounded in the clearing. Then the billowing heat as a very focused stream of fire shot into the pond, cutting off just as the water started to steam.

  Irin deftly caught the falling sandwich on a plate and waved a charred stick at Kis. “Nicely done.”

  Lily dared a look down at her arms. Oceana was a frozen dragon statue. One staring at Kis, with her tail in the water—the water that had just gone from lukewarm to steaming in a single breath.

  Slowly, Lily let go just enough to free her fingers and put them in the water—and nearly drowned in what she felt. Blazing terror, and just underneath it, a wild kind of awe. She pushed calm at Oceana. Steadiness. The knowledge that this was something that happened with regularity and was nothing to fear.

  Very slowly, the shaking subsided, and gratefully, Lily let her hold on Oceana ease. It was a bit like cuddling a porcupine. Every spike on her dragon’s body stuck straight up, and most of them had found Lily’s soft parts to poke. Gingerly, she let go of Oceana entirely, but kept her fingers in the water.

  Kis’s eyes seemed to regard her fingers, and then the old dragon began to move. One lumbering step and then another. Oceana quivered, but she wasn’t nearly so scared anymore. Lily let her be. She couldn’t hold her dragon down all the time.

  Kis closed the distance to the edge of the pond and began to lie down, looking for all the world like he was going to take a nap.

  Lily stared. No dragon other than Lotus had ever gotten that close to the pool. Most of them couldn’t even make it into the clearing—they mostly chose to heat the water from the sky. “He looks totally calm.”

  “He’s not,” Irin said very quietly. “But unlike the others who have tried this, he knows what it is to take to the skies even when you’re deathly afraid. He knows the water won’t hurt him. It’s only fear he has to conquer.”

  Lily watched the dragon she mostly thought of as a bedtime storyteller lower himself ungracefully to the ground, one awkward, painful bend at a time.

  Oceana’s chin moved forward a little. Toward Kis.

  The old dragon ignored her, going through the slow, aching motions needed to curl up at the edge of the pool, his unblinking golden eyes never looking away from the water. Staring down an adversary. Showing no fear.

  Irin growled softly, and it was a sound full of pride.

  Kis paused a long moment, and then his tail began to move. Not with pain this time. There were no jerking movements—just the smooth remnants of skill that had once been the finest flyer in the sky. Lily held her breath as yellow-gold scales descended toward the mists and the water.

  Oceana’s chin moved forward a little more.

  When the tip of Kis’s tail slid into the water, a great shudder shook his whole body.

  Irin inhaled sharply. “You’ve got this, old man.”

  The shudder lessened, a great dragon throwing off the fetters of fear as he let a length of his tail as long as Lily was tall slide into the water. The shaking gone, he looked across the pool, golden eyes meeting Irin’s brown ones first, and then Lily’s, and finally the shiny black ones of a small dragon held entirely still by nothing but awe.

  Kis rumbled softly, the same sound he made when he lulled Lotus to sleep.

  Oceana chittered with startled excitement.

  Kis rumbled again, and this time Irin chuckled. “He says the water feels good.”

  Oceana whirred and splashed her tail on the surface of the water. The droplets fell nowhere near Kis, but he glared sternly and snorted smoke out his nose anyhow.

  Lily hid a giggle as her dragon bowed her head exactly like a small child who had just been scolded. Splashing Kis was a very bad idea. Then Oceana lifted her head and tried to blow smoke out her own nose, spraying her flat rock with snot instead.

  Kis made a noise that sounded for all the world like laughter.

  Oceana stood, preening in the sun for a moment, and then slid into the water without splashing at all. She paddled as far as the middle of the pool and swam in small circles, her eyes never leaving the golden dragon on the far side.

  Irin leaned back, crossing his legs and holding out one half of the toasted sandwich.

  Lily took it and let the melted cheese feed the glow she felt inside.

  Chapter 11

  Lily stretched in her bed and squinted her eyes against the morning sun. She could get used to this. Waking up to this kind of brightness meant you’d slept right through the village crashing about getting ready to greet the day.

  She blew out a breath and sat up, shaking off her wet fingers. Today didn’t feel as lonely and uncertain as yesterday. Kis’s visit had convinced her that maybe this was possible, that Oceana could figure out how to live around dragons that snorted smoke as often as most people cleared their throats. They’d taken the first step, and it was Irin who always said that was the hardest one.

  Lily grimaced. That man thought way too many steps in life needed to be hard. But she wouldn’t hold it against him. Not today while the sun shone and his dragon had become Oceana’s first friend.

  A stray giggle squirted out into the morning. Kis was normally the farthest thing from a warm and welcoming dragon in the existence of dragons. But when he’d finally lumbered home yesterday, Irin had muttered something under his breath about the day having been a good one for two dragons, and Lily believed him.

  Maybe they could eventually teach him to splash his tail in the pool.

  She shook her head ruefully and stood up. They’d have to move the tent first.

  She grinned at Oceana, still sound asleep on a rock, and made it as far as the closed basket that hadn’t been there the night before, when she heard a very familiar noise headed the
ir way. A part of the village clatter she’d actually missed. She could hear Kellen’s voice, teasing, and Alonia’s lilting, dismissive reply. Sapphire laughed and exchanged words with a deeper voice Lily couldn’t quite make out.

  She looked down at the basket and hoped it held enough breakfast to feed company too.

  It was Karis’s head she spied first, taller than the three she walked with. Lily felt oddly protective of her dragon. Karis was a very good teacher, but Oceana’s first lesson with Afran had been a bit of a disaster.

  Kellen grinned and held up a basket that matched the one by Lily’s tent door. “Good morning, sleepyheads.”

  Her head did still feel pretty sleepy. “Hi. Thanks for coming to eat with us.” Maybe exile by the warm pool wouldn’t be so bad.

  “We’re not here as breakfast guests.” Karis took a seat on a flat rock. “Lessons don’t end just because you have a dragon. You’ve missed nearly a fortnight with the wedding trip and the rest of your excitement.”

  Alonia scowled. “We missed the wedding.”

  Karis chuckled. “I would find that the preferable outcome, but I understand your sadness at missing something you’d looked forward to.”

  Kellen handed Alonia a berry pastry still dripping with juices. “You’re just mad you didn’t get to wear your best dress.”

  Lily was glad someone was taking over the teasing in her absence. Alonia came from a clan of talkers, and she tended to feel abandoned if there weren’t several verbal sword fights a day.

  Karis calmly reached for a berry pastry of her own. “Word has traveled that Oceana let Kis warm her pool yesterday. Lotus is going to come by and do the same this morning.” She held up a hand as Lily started to protest. “Just the warming. For now, we’ll leave Kis with the fine distinction of being the only dragon brave enough to put his tail in the water.”