20. The Aftermath
Arxet’s teeth were fairly sore by the time she made it back to the house, and she had a headache like you wouldn’t believe. Her gums might be bleeding just a little, but only just a tad. With a stumbling, unbalanced gait she walked the safe back to the staircase, opened the trap door up, and gave it a good shove down the stairs. Might as well use gravity to her advantage, eh?
Amjazel shot out of her room at the clattering of the heavy metal box as it slammed down all five stories of steps. She almost looked ready for a fight until she spotted Arxet at the top of the steps, and then the safe slowly… making it’s way… down... Crashing every step of the way.
The cacophony was deafening, the stone walls echoed each impact right back to the listener to intensify it. Neither of them bothered reaching out to talk mentally because they already couldn’t hear their own thoughts, let alone someone else. Other strange dragons further down the long stone corridor that crossed almost the entire length of the island poked their heads out to see what the ruckus was. Amjazel looked mortified at the commotion her daughter had created.
“Oh she should just wait til I tell her where I got it.” Arxet finally managed a thought as the safe finally hit the bottom, careened over, and slammed down one final time. Her ears were ringing after that. “Think you could help me get that back to my room and pry it open?” She opened her wings and glided down the steps to the bottom. “I think this might have been a bit big for me to carry on my own, I’m getting sore.”
“Arxet! You know other dragons share the space, don’t you?” Amjazel glanced back apologetically at the others further down the hall. “You can’t just- drop a- what even is that?” She came further out of her room to get a better look at the box. The fall had damaged it so badly that it was almost unrecognizable at this point.
“It’s the safe from the jewelry shop that had me thrown in jail.” She tried to pick it up in her mouth again and ended up dropping it again after a few feet. A tooth actually came with it. “FUCK!” She let out a roar, creating fresh echoes in the hallway. At least her teeth would regrow now…
“Dear… you have a rider for this type of thing, don’t you?” Amjazel groaned and picked up the safe herself. “Where do you want it?”
Some other strange dragons were still staring from down the hall. “Eh, by the table with the rest of my gold and gems. Wish I could lock pick this thing right now, but hey! No hands!” She trotted back to her room, Amjazel stomping close behind. She couldn’t care less about the stares from the other dragons. Her heart was still pounding with all the excitement, her mind was abuzz and unfocused. She loved it. She hadn’t done anything remotely like this in years, not since she and a few other urchins heisted the strongbox from a ministry caravan- okay maybe don’t think about that with a dragon associated with the ministry in the room, even if her thoughts leaked out less now.
Amjazel sat the dented metal lump down as gently and quietly as possible, hooked a claw in under the door, and gave a casual tug. The door popped off as easily as a cork from a barrel, despite its latch and its various reinforcements.
Arxet leapt across the room, landing on top of the safe, to get a look at her haul. Her snout shot in and retrieved a mouthful of gold first thing, which she deposited on her table with the rest. There were so many gems, so many coins! That first mouthful had already doubled her hoard, and there was more to dig through still!
“I’m glad you made things right with that swindler, but please, try to be mindful of the other residents of the tunnels, dear.” Amjazel prodded as her daughter continued to dig through the box’s glittery guts.
“Yeah, yeah, gotcha” Arxet withdrew with a tangled wad of golden necklaces. “Gonna need someone with fingers to fix those later… can you start on transformation magic with me later?”
“Well it still might take a few years but- Arxet I’m serious, are you listening?” She huffed and put a foot over the opening to the safe. “You even chipped the stairs with that- that display!”
“Can’t we fix it with magic? It’s not that big a deal.” She glared at the obstructing foot and began organizing what she’d already pulled out. A few of the more delicate stones and some of the pearls had been crushed or shattered in the fall, a few rings had been dented and warped. “Okay yeah, I’m seeing the problem now.”
“What do you- Arxet…” The older dragon sighed and laid down behind her daughter. “If you want me to view you as an adult that does include acting like one. You’re being very immature.”
“Yeah, I’d say. She wrecked the whole fucking shop!” Tifse grumbled as she stomped in. “I had to explain to the guards what happened! You ditched me!”
“I didn’t ditch you, I let you do the talking.” Arxet quipped back and pulled out a massive purple gem and offered it to the larger dragon. “Here, you want this one? It kinda matches you.” Maybe that would get Amjazel off her back just a little.
“I-” Amjazel seemed surprised at the offer for a moment before squinting, a slight grin forming across her muzzle. “Arxet, my beautiful sparkling daughter, my pride and joy, my boundless love made manifest, are you trying to bribe me?”
“Nooooooo!” Arxet could tell she had Amjazel right where she wanted her. What doting mother could stay mad after a first gift from their youngest, most problematic child? “It’s a gift! Why- you’ve done so much for me these past few months! You deserve something nice for it, right?”
Arxet grinned up at the dragon, trying to send happy vibes across the link. Amjazel didn’t seem convinced. This called for the do or die play.
“I… love you?”
Amjazel stayed silent for a moment before letting out a hearty chuckle. “Oh, Arxet…” She leaned down and laid a heavy lick across the smaller dragon’s face. “I know you think you don’t mean it, I wasn’t born yesterday. But I think it means plenty that you’d pull that to placate me. You actually do, on some level, care what I think about you. I’ll take the amethyst, I love you too, dear.” With that she plucked up the amethyst with a spell, licked her daughter down along the back one more time, and took her leave from the room. “Thank you for explaining to the guards, Tifse. Arxet, please try not to cause such a scene next time.” And she was gone.
“You walked right into that, didn’t you-”
“Oh shut up, help me untangle these chains.” She growled and knocked the fox closer with a wing.
The two spent the next hour or so organizing and cleaning up Arxet’s hoard addition. Tifse, as it turned out, knew a thing or two about gems since there was an emerald mine on her cousin’s land, and her family kept numerous texts on gemology on hand. This allowed her to not only neatly separate out and identify most of the new stones, but the old ones as well.
She had twenty five new sapphires of various sizes, clarity, cut, and color (who knew they could be gold or pink!), ten new rubies, seventeen new amethysts, three opals (most of them had been crushed or broken in the tumble. Who knew pretty rocks could be delicate!), one emerald (also delicate it turns out!) and twelve diamonds. The safe had also contained approximately fifty feet of golden chain, forty feet of silver, one hundred thirty silver coins, eighteen gold coins, and three hundred twenty three copper coins. This single merchant in this city had more money than her birth parents’ personal treasury had ever included. And now it was hers.
Many of her new stones were also set in rings, on pendants, or in earrings, meaning she could experiment with adding them to her spines and horns later with the rest of the accessories Amjazel had gifted her.
Overall this had just about quintupled the size of her hoard. She was salivating at the sight of the neatly arranged glittering gems on the table. They seemed to form some sort of strange sparkly flower, with the stand holding her prized sapphire at the center. Tifse had even found an appropriate length of chain to hang the sapphire Arxet had originally purchased those months ago around her neck.
She needed more.
Shortly after she finished getting organized, and Tifse had wandered off to sulk or something, the sound of the trap door opening and slamming closed rang down the tunnel. “Arxet! What the hell?” Ah, Rubis was back.
“I’m in my room.” She responded, distracted. Her full attention was still on the gem arrangement.
Arxet could hear her making her way down the hall and push past the curtain. She glanced over her shoulder briefly to give a “Hey.” Before returning her attention to her gems. She felt… strangely numb, like nothing else really mattered right now.
“What happened to the plan? I put a lot of work into helping you today!” Arxet blinked as the words hit her. The red dragon actually seemed genuinely upset. What was she supposed to do with that again? Offer her a ruby? It worked on Amjazel.
“Uh- sorry?” She did not turn from her haul. She couldn’t possibly offer a ruby, that would break the perfect circle Tifse had created from them for her. It would be a crime to disturb a perfect work of art.
“I was really excited to do something with you today…” Her older sister moved up to the side by her. “Why did you just… abandon the plan like that?”
The feelings of betrayal wafting across the mental link were enough to snap her out of her trance. “I- what? I- I guess I didn’t think about it. I just got bored I guess.”
“You threw out all of the work we did together this morning just because you were bored?” Rubis seemed as if she couldn’t decide whether to be mad or hurt. “You could have said something! We could have reworked it! I- I really just wanted to help…”
Why did Arxet feel so bad about this? She just did what she wanted to do in the first place before she got talked out of it. “Yeah well… Emren told me I had to bring you if I wanted to use her pin.” She was getting too close to this family. They were getting to her. She never would have felt guilty for something like this before. “I never really wanted your help in the first place, okay? Let’s just forget about this.”
Rubis reeled at the words. “Arxet that- that’s cold.” Was that a sniffle? “I really thought- I thought you and I were starting to really get along. But… fine. Enjoy your rocks. Next time just…” She huffed and stormed out of the room.
Arxet suddenly felt as if she were going to be sick. The words ‘that’s cold’ rang in her head longer and more painfully than even the safe had. She’d endured verbal abuse for most of her life, she thought she could take it, but that word, coming from Rubis? It hurt more deeply than she ever could have anticipated. She thought she could trust her sister. But clearly the red dragon still only saw her coldmark.