A Dragon’s Tale

Taloni finished her morning prayers to Illuminar asking for the same thing she'd wanted ever since she could remember: her freedom and the enchanted collar that paralyzed her wings to be removed. She also added a prayer that Illuminar would send someone to help the dragon get better.

At the thought of the dragon, her heart did a little backflip. She knew it was stupid, but no one had ever cared enough to fight for her before. Her owner Thaltien had of course, but that was only because she was useful. He didn't care about her personally, only what she could do for him.

The dragon on the other hand...

Taloni shook her head. It was stupid thinking of a dragon like that. He was a dragon. Everyone always said the only thing that dragons love more than imposing their will on others is power. Dragons didn't care about people at all and saw them only as tools. But that dragon -- Ethan -- he wasn't like that; or at least he didn't seem to be.

"I'm so glad they saved you from that awful dragon." Prayla said after sticking her head into Taloni's private sanctum.

"They didn't save me." Taloni said. "He wasn't going to hurt me."

"Oh right." Prayla said rolling her eyes. "And Saidow is about to repent to Illuminar for creating evil."

"I don't think that's likely." Taloni replied. "But that dragon was just... He was so... I don't know." She couldn't think of the right word.

Prayla gave her an odd look, then her eyes lit up. "You're not in love with this dragon are you?"

"Of course not." Taloni said quickly; maybe a little too quickly.

"You are!" Prayla exclaimed. "What was he like?"

"He was kind, and I think he cares about other people." Taloni replied.

"No, not that." Prayla said teasingly. "I mean the sex. How good was he in bed? Did he live up to the legends?"

"What?" Taloni went beet red. "No, of course not."

"He wasn't good in bed?"

"No, that's not what I--" Taloni spluttered. "I mean I wouldn't know. We didn't do anything."

"You're such a little liar." Prayla said with a good-natured smile and in a sing-song voice. "I bet he drilled you like a--"

"Stop." The Fey cut her off. Her cheeks were feeling hot and it suddenly felt very warm.

"So you don't want to jump his bones?' Prayla asked.

"No, I would never-- I mean I wouldn't even think of-- Just no." Taloni finished.

"Come on, anyone with eyes could see you're smitten." Prayla said. "Look me in the eye and tell me you don't want to feel some dragon cock in your pussy."

Taloni covered her face with her hands to hide her embarrassment. She hadn't really thought about doing 'that' with the dragon and she wouldn't; wouldn't think about it that is. She definitely didn't want to think about him like that. She was a good Fey and followed Illuminar. Good Fey didn't think about that until they were bonded.

Ever.

Although...

"So you do want to?" Prayla asked after Taloni was silent for several seconds.

"No." Taloni said from behind her hands. Though now that Prayla had mentioned it, she wondered what it might be like. She tried to put that thought out of her head as quickly as possible.

"Then say it." Prayla said. "And remember, good Fey don't lie."

Taloni dropped her hands and gave Pralya a look. "I don't want to do 'it' with the dragon."

Prayla rolled her eyes. "You are a terrible liar."

"I'm not lying." Taloni exclaimed.

"Sure you aren't." Prayla replied then with a huge and mischievous smile.

Taloni got up and left the room.

* * *

The rest of the day passed slowly for Taloni. After escaping Prayla's heckling, she had very little to do. Fortunately, there were no cave-ins or other accidents, so she spent most of the day wandering through the mines out of sheer boredom.

The miners catcalled and whistled good-naturedly as usual, but she knew they were glad she hadn't been eaten by the dragon. Taloni tried to explain the dragon was nice, but that was a losing battle to gold miners. When the day shift finally quit to have dinner, Taloni grabbed a few bits of meat and slipped away from the mine.

When she got back to the shallow ravine, the dragon was in exactly the same position as when she'd left the previous night. That wasn't a good sign. She made her way down and over to the dragon.

He barely reacted to her presence.

"Ethan?" Taloni said.

The dragon made a small noise in its throat, but calling it a grunt would've been generous. He appeared to be halfway between awake and asleep.

"Ethan, I brought some food for you." Taloni set the bits of meat in front of him.

The dragon sniffed, and it looked like he tried to move his head, but he gave up rather quickly.

Taloni put a hand on the dragon and discovered his scales weren't nearly as warm as they had been the previous night. She focused all her senses on the dragon trying to get a sense for his health. It took some time, but she was able to see how he was doing.

It wasn't good.

His regular mana was completely exhausted and his deep mana was lower than was healthy. It was slow, but his deep mana was being used to keep him alive and wasn't being replenished. The only good news was that his deep mana wasn't so depleted yet so she could use regular mana to help.

"I'm going to give you some of my mana." Taloni said.

The dragon opened his eyes and -- after struggling for a few moments -- managed to get out two words. "No, bond"

"It's just regular mana silly." Taloni replied. "It won't cause a bond to form but it will keep you alive a little longer."

The dragon made a noise that sounded like permission, so Taloni went ahead. She placed both of her hands on the dragon and nudged her mana out of her body and into his. It was much harder than she expected. The dragon almost seemed resistant to accepting it. Eventually though, he relaxed and her mana began to flow into him, and she knew his body would convert it into deep mana very quickly.

A few minutes later, Taloni was all out of regular mana.

The dragon seemed better. His breathing was less labored and he was looking around. He even thanked Taloni for the meat scraps and nibbled on them a little. Afterward, he took a few sips of water from the stream. Even doing that appeared to take a great effort.

Taloni put her hand on the dragon and check again. His body was slowly converting the regular mana to deep mana. However, he was going through the regular mana very fast.

"I thought you needed deep mana to replenish deep mana." The dragon said.

"Only when you're really low on deep mana." Taloni said. "Your body converts regular mana to deep mana and uses the deep mana to keep you alive. But if your deep mana gets too low, your body just doesn't have enough energy to do the conversion."

"Oh." The dragon said, then closed his eyes again.

"The mana I gave you might help for a little while." Taloni said. "But you're still going to run out. I can't collect and share it fast enough because you're burning through the mana I gave you really fast."

"Why?" the dragon asked sleepily.

"Not all mana is the same." Taloni explained. "The mana trees leave behind is slightly different than the mana animals leave behind. Different people find it easier to use mana from different sources. For example, wood elves find it easier to collect the mana left behind by trees. Fey find it easier to collect the mana left behind by people, etcetera."

The dragon grunted.

"Your body isn't used to the mana I gave you, so it doesn't use it very efficiently." Taloni finished. "You need mana from resonating gold."

"M'kay." The dragon said, then Taloni saw him relax as he drifted off to sleep.

She checked his mana again. At the rate he was using it, the mana she gave him would be gone in just a few hours. By the morning, he might be unconscious. By midnight tomorrow, he might be dead.

Taloni got up and started pacing. If she went back to the mine and spent all night replenishing her mana, she could buy him a little more time. His body just burned through her donated mana so fast though, there was no way she could keep up.

She felt her chest get tight and her eyes get watery. Ethan was going to die soon, and she had no gold so there was nothing she could do about it.

* * *

The sun had just risen over the eastern skyline when Hailey made her way up to the weather deck of the Argo. A quick glance over the side confirmed that Anthiel had stuck to the plan and kept the Argo as low as possible. The lower mast was less than thirty feet above the tops of the trees. The high elf had also stricken the upper sails to reduce the chance that someone from Arcanum would see them.

Hailey looked around. Anthiel was up at the quarterdeck playing an instrument that looked similar to a violin. At the bow of the Argo, Alana was looking over the side of the ship, presumably for Ethan. Hailey knew they would have a better vantage point if they flew higher, but it wasn't an option with Lord Delmar's dragon hunters on their tail.

She glanced over at Arcanum.

They had made good time during the night and it was just a little blip on the horizon. She doubted that even wood elf eyes could make out individual airships at this distance. They would probably be safe until the dragon hunters figured out where they went. If they figured it out at all, which wasn't likely.

She scowled as she looked towards where she knew The Arena was. Her former master was its champion, and she seethed at the thought of him going free. If only he had had been killed.

She sighed; if only.

As much as she wanted to leave this God-forsaken world, she wanted to make him pay before she left. She gazed out at Arcanum wistfully. It wouldn't take much; just a few hours at night and a knife. She knew the house and thanks to her training, there were few buildings she couldn't infiltrate.

Hailey shook her head and resolved to join Alana in looking for Ethan instead of brooding on revenge.

"Penny for your thoughts." Hailey said when she got close.

"I'm worried about Ethan." Alana replied as she turned to face her.

"I could tell." Hailey replied, then leaned her willowy frame against the rail next to the wood elf. "You look like you have something else on your mind though."

Alana hesitated for a few moments before answering. "Do you believe in fate, Hailey?"

"I don't know." Hailey replied. "Why?"

"Because of Ethan." Alana replied. "It seems like we're so perfect for each other, yet nothing ever seems to work right."

"And you're wondering if fate wants you to be together or wants to keep you apart?" Hailey asked.

"Kind of." Alana said, and she ran her hands through her chocolate-brown hair. "I mean, on the one hand, he literally traveled across worlds to get here and the first thing he did was save my life. But on the other hand, everything that's happened since then makes it seem like..."

"Like...?"

"I don't know." Alana replied. "We're bonded, but it seems like everything in the universe is trying to prevent us from being together."

"You think so?" Hailey asked.

"He married someone else because I forgot about contract bounties." Alana said. "Then I nearly died getting him out of the vault at The Bank, and the only reason I came with him on the Argo was so Lord Delmar wouldn't kill me. Plus, there are all the issues he's dealing with from his home and now the guilt from Beth's death. Finally, I told him I loved him and the first thing he did was literally jump out a window."

"And you're wondering if maybe all of that is a sign?"

"Yeah." Alana replied. "I hate being apart from him, but maybe we're not meant to be."

Hailey was silent for nearly a minute. She had heard Ethan and Alana's star-crossed lovers' history the previous day and could see the wood elf had a point. On the other hand, the way Alana talked about Ethan, the care and concern in her voice, it couldn't be anything but real love.

"Where I come from, there's a very famous playwright named Shakespeare." Hailey said. "In one of his plays, he wrote 'The course of true love never did run smooth'. Maybe that's all this is?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, yes all those things have happened, but you both still care for each other. You know? Maybe these... these trials aren't driving you apart? Maybe they're just steps on your journey together. A tough journey to be sure, but wouldn't that make it more worthwhile when it does happen?"

"Yeah, it would." Alana said with a sigh.

They stood there in companionable silence for several minutes watching the ground move underneath the Argo. The ground below was deceptively peaceful and stood in stark contrast to the wood elf standing beside her. Hailey didn't need a bond to tell that Alana was a bundle of nervous energy right now.

"He really jumped out a window after you told him you loved him?" Hailey finally said.

"Yeah." Alana replied. "He said I was better off without him. I think he believes he got Beth killed and he'll do the same to me."

"Well, he does have Lord Delmar hunting him." Hailey replied. "I suppose just being around Ethan puts you in Lord Delmar's crosshairs."

"What do you mean by 'crosshairs'?" Alana asked.

"It's just an expression where I come from." Hailey explained. "It means he'll go after you."

"Strange expression, but you're not wrong." Alana replied. "Then why are you still here if you're worried about Lord Delmar?"

"Partially it's mercenary." Hailey said. "I need to get back home and an airship goes a long way toward that goal. Partially..." Hailey trailed off. Why was she traveling with the Argo? It certainly was dangerous with Lord Delmar pursuing them.

"I don't know." Hailey finally said. "I guess maybe you guys are my best shot at getting home? I assume Ethan wants to go home too?"

"I think so." Alana replied. "And that's another thing. From what I've heard your world is very different. If I wanted to follow Ethan, would there be any place for me there?"

Hailey took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't envy your situation Alana. That's rough. Maybe try to focus on finding Ethan first and worry about the rest later?"

"Good idea; 'don't borrow problems from the future; today has enough troubles to worry about'."

"That sounds like the Bible." Hailey said.

"I've never heard of the Bible." Alana said. "It's from Illuminar's Book of Light."

"Either way, it's good advice." Hailey said.

Alana nodded. "Agreed, the trouble is how do I find one man-- er, dragon in this wilderness?"

"Good question." Hailey replied. "We can't go higher and searching on foot would take way too long. Plus, you'd get soaked crossing all these rivers and streams."

"Soaked in the rivers..." Alana trailed off and then she clapped her hand on her forehead. "Of course! That's it!"

"What is it?"

Alana nearly jumped for joy and gave Hailey a huge hug. "Thank you so much, I know how to find Ethan!"

(End of chapter 8)

Note: This chapter began on day 42 of Ethan's life in the Ten Kingdoms and ended on day 44.