27. Prayers and Boots
“I don’t know, Safraxi. They don’t sound mad at you. They sound worried.” Tifse was double and triple checking the dragon’s saddlebags before the second flight across the lake. The two had scrambled to get their supplies and make it to shore before Emren and Amjazel found their trail again.
“So what!” The dragon groaned and stretched her wings for the first time since her crash two days prior. They were still sore, but she was more than willing to push through if she really had to. She was also still dead tired after going the previous night without sleep. Her eyes were getting heavy, and she needed to get her blood pumping to keep herself awake as soon as possible.
The longer she’d gone without taking her dragon form the more she had begun to feel restless, and she began to experience a sort of yearning tingle in her shoulder blades until she returned to her full size. It was a challenge just to stay bipedal all the way out of the city. She did not need to have rumors start spreading of a blue dragon passing through while Amjazel and Emren were already searching for her, though. So she had forced herself to make it out away from the city before changing back. And what a relief changing back was. It felt like finally taking off a jacket that was squeezing her too tight, and finally being able to breathe again.
“What do you mean, so what? They don’t mean any harm, clearly. They already knew you were planning to leave. I think they just want to make sure you’re okay.” She patted Safraxi’s rump, satisfied that their supplies were secure. “You don’t have to go with them.”
“Not happening. They’re dead to me.” She growled and stomped in the sand.
Tifse was beginning to feel torn on the strange back and forth she was witnessing with her dragon. Sometimes she seemed her usual self, others she would just seem like a completely different person, but Safraxi seemed none the wiser, no matter how often she pointed it out. Whenever she switched as an anthronoid it was always accompanied by a change in form from rat to fox or vice versa. At least Safraxi was self aware to notice that part, but refused to analyze it further.
“Right, well if you insist on crossing tonight then we should get going, while there are still some updrafts from the sun.” She clambered into the saddle. “It’s going to be two or three hours at least, even if the wind is with us.”
“How do you know so much about flying?” Safraxi flexed her wings and gave a few experimental flaps. “I’m the dragon, not you.”
“They make us learn all of that as part of the academy. You just haven’t learned it yet because you ignored your classes and Amjazel had to do catch-up with you.” She flicked the top of one of the dragon’s back spines, sending an angry shiver all the way down to the tip of Safraxi’s tail. She had figured out that it was an unpleasant but not painful feeling she could most easily inflict on the dragon, like someone rubbing her fur the wrong way.
“S-stop that!” Safraxi huffed and tried to shake off the strange feeling. “I’m trying to get ready to fly! You’re gonna mess me up!”
“Right, right. Go on then, fly.” She rolled her eyes and glanced up at the sun, it was already more than three quarters of the way through its arc in the sky. She had a feeling the dragon wasn’t going to go through with it. Safraxi’s doubts were practically screaming in the back of her mind. It was summer now, the day would last longer than usual, but they both knew they would run out of the easy updrafts once the sun got too low in the sky, and might not be enough for an easy crossing.
“Yeah, I’m gonna fly! Just- just hold on!” She flapped down again, trying to get a sense for just how bad the soreness really was. If she could just catch these winds it wouldn’t be a big deal…
“We should wait until morning, Safraxi.” Tifse sighed from her back. “You’re not going to make it, I can tell how nervous you are.”
“Fuck you, I’m not-” Suddenly she had shifted back to an anthronoid form and collapsed into the sand flat on her face. Tifse wasn’t prepared for the shift and landed right on the back of Safraxi’s head, ass-first.
“Hey! What the-” She rolled off of the prone dragon, rubbing her sore rear. Safraxi’s helmet had a few sharp angles on the back that didn’t feel too good to land on, and Tifse’s posterior was unarmored.
“We aren’t going today. Help me make camp.” Safraxi grabbed the saddlebags and slung them over her shoulder before setting off for the rocky cliffs further to the south.
Tifse stared after in confusion for a moment before following. She had felt another mental change in the dragon, but this one was more subtle. It had probably happened before without her ever noticing, but now that she was paying attention and accompanied by the shape shifting it was much more apparent.
Safraxi’s head was pounding all of a sudden, and she seemed angry at herself as she tossed the saddlebags under an overhang along the cliff and began pulling out the pieces of the pair’s tent. “Are you coming to help or not?” As her frustration began to mount she ripped her helmet off and chucked it in the sand at her feet.
“Right, right… Just confused at the sudden change.” Tifse jogged over and began helping to set it up, trying to hide what she was really thinking about the concerning situation. As she came up she found Safraxi was a rat again, but different from the one she’d seen the night previous. Rather than having the sharp draconic teeth from before, she seemed now to have her regular buck teeth, but her glowing green eyes from her draconic form instead.
“I just came to my senses. Stop worrying about me.” Safraxi was struggling to arrange the poles to the tent right. Her exhaustion was clouding her mind, and she couldn’t seem to concentrate long enough to untangle them.
Tifse grabbed the poles from the dragon in rat form and shooed her way. “I’ve got it. You just grab something to eat and get some rest. I feel like you’re about to fall over any moment.”
“I am not! But… yeah, fine.” Safraxi grunted and dropped down onto the sand to dig through her pack for some of their road rations. They wouldn’t be able to keep buying their food for long. Dragons had to eat a lot, and she couldn’t carry enough to satiate her long term, especially since she was still a kid by dragon standards and growing fast. The two of them would need to start hunting soon, but first she would need to regain her strength and wits long enough to complete a proper hunt.
Tifse had the tent set up in no time. She had experience from going out with her father on his desert expeditions, and her journey from southern Stefaial to Fellrock. Safraxi had even found a tent barely big enough to fit her dragon form inside, so she would have additional options at night. “There, get inside, and sleep, Icebrain.”
“Yeah, yeah. I didn’t go on the flight, give me a break.” Safraxi groaned as she forced herself back to her feet and hobbled inside. The moment she was past the entryway she collapsed onto the blanket laid out on the leather floor and curled up. After a moment she grew back to her full size to fill the interior. She had grown more in the three and a half months since her transformation than she realized. The tent wouldn’t have as much space as the two expected.
“Well, there goes any hope of us sleeping separately.” Tifse sighed and clambered in before tucking herself between her dragon’s stomach and tail. It was cozy, in its own way, but far from her ideal sleeping arrangement.
Safraxi was reflecting on the events of the past two days again. Parts of it still didn’t seem real. She’d found a home, but lost it again. It just kept happening. First in Tiskin, then in Arghold, and now in Fellrock. Some part of her, deep down inside, missed Amjazel, Emren, Tiamat, and even Rubis. She had felt safe there for the longest time. She even thought she might have finally found the place she could make a life for herself, but it wasn’t meant to be. Those people didn’t understand her, they didn’t understand what it was like for her. No one but Tifse and Idami could ever possibly understand.
A sniffle lurched through her. Below, tucked against her stomach, Tifse was jostled by it. She couldn’t even be upset. She could feel all of the emotions brewing in Safraxi, and assumed that she would just need to get the tears out of her system. The sniffles grew into sobs, and soon enough the dragon was crying her eyes out and squeezing the rider like a plushie or a pillow.
Three weeks ago Tifse would have hated this, but she was crying right along with the dragon now. It was hard not to join in with the torrent of chaotic and conflicting sentiments flooding out of the dragon. Under the surface she felt as if she could almost sense… the other versions of Safraxi she had sensed the other day. All of the raging emotions seemed to have pulled them to the surface like vegetables in a pot of boiling soup, spilling over the edges and into the flame below. Another version of Safraxi seemed more prominent now, according to Tifse’s mental senses, but without any shapeshifting or speech from her it was hard to tell anything else about her current state.
Eventually the tears subsided, and Safraxi drifted off to sleep. Her foreleg relaxed enough that Tifse was able to carefully wriggle free and slip out of the tent again without waking the dragoness.
Tifse made absolutely sure the dragon was asleep before she went far. Safraxi was dreaming now of the manor in Tiskin, but Amjazel and Emren were there, and Safraxi was… a little tiger girl? Interesting, but she was asleep, and for now that’s all Tifse needed to know.
Safraxi needed support. It was becoming increasingly clear that Tifse wasn’t cut out for this alone. Safraxi didn’t deserve to live like this.
She could only think of one way to get any help though, and there was only one other person that the dragon would ever consider accepting it from, but getting a message there would be nearly impossible right now.
Well, there was one way to get a message back to Safraxi’s family…
She started her march down the beach away from the tent. She needed space if she was going to do this, and she couldn’t let Safraxi know she had done it until long after. This could really strike a blow to the trust they were starting to build if it went wrong…
Once she was a safe distance away she sank down to her knees by the water, folded her hands together over her heart, and bowed her head in prayer. “Tiamat, I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s Tifse. Your granddaughter is safe for now, I’m with her. But… she needs help, more than I think I can really give, and I know she won’t accept it from you or Amjazel…”
Safraxi slept until noon the next day. Tifse knew better than to wake her. The dragon needed all the sleep she could get after the past two days.
Audirei’s boat would have left a few hours before, if everything went according to schedule in Fellrock. It would probably be two days until she reached port at Saris Fal, at the end of the Sulis River. Stefaial was a giant desertous slope, coming down from the plateau Fell Lake was sitting on, a quarter of a mile above the sea, until it met the ocean at the bottom. Two rivers came down from the great lake and down the mountains bordering the desert nation, Sulis, to the east, and Hovis, to the west. Each of them fed into a different smaller lake to the south, each named for the river that fed them. Saris Fal sat at the mouth of the Sulis river, where it became Sulis lake.
Tifse’s home sat along Sulis lake in Salifir, further to the southeast of Saris Fal. Their route would take her only a three hour’s flight from the city she grew up in. The fox couldn’t make up her mind if she should visit or not. Would it even reflect well on her to come back with a coldmarked foul mouthed dragon like Safraxi? Does that even count as being a rider to make her father proud or would it just make her look more like a failure?
Checking the link she could feel Safraxi was still slightly sore, but maybe they’d be able to cross in time.
“Didn’t hear an answer last night… but when have I ever?” It wasn’t really Tiamat’s way to respond to prayers verbally. Things just got better, or they didn’t, and it was never clear if it was luck or divine intervention when they did. She felt that this time would be different though. The goddess wouldn’t be able to ignore her granddaughter being in distress like this. She just hoped that the goddess would listen to the rest of the prayer. If anyone else from the family showed up now it would be a disaster. Safraxi just wasn’t ready. Tifse wasn’t sure if she ever would be.
The fox was still torn on her dragon’s family situation. Neither of them really deserved to be a part of the ministry or Tiamat’s family like that. She didn’t know how she had fooled herself into thinking she could be a real rider, or Safraxi fooled herself into thinking she could be a real dragon, but that family really did love Safraxi for some reason. Even if it was never meant to be, Safraxi didn’t know how lucky and undeserving she was.
“Am I just jealous?” The fox sighed as she stared out over the water. “No… I’m not any more meant to have a family than she is. This is stupid.” She grabbed a rock and tried skipping it out across the waters of the lake, but it hit a wave at the wrong angle and sank straight into the water.
She felt Safraxi’s consciousness flicker back into wakefulness after her nearly eighteen hour rest. The dragon was groggy and confused about where she was, and awkwardly pushing herself out from under the tent flap into the sun. She squinted hatefully at the sun’s blinding rays and put a wing over her face to shade herself. “Why is the sun so fucking bright in the south? What the fuck.”
“Welcome back to the world of the living. We should get some food in you and make the crossing as soon as we can.” Tifse stretched and made her way back over to the tent. “I’ll put the tent away, just eat and make sure you’re in a shape to fly. Audirei is going to be landing either tomorrow or the day after, and I don’t want to have to track her down.”
Safraxi grunted and dragged the saddle bags out from the tent as well. She was being dramatic as if she had been woken up before sunrise. She dug her snout into the bags and gulped down some of the dried meat from straight inside the pouch without chewing. It wasn’t much, but it should be enough to get them across Fell Lake again. “I think I needed that. I feel… alive again. Yesterday… I barely remember yesterday.”
“Maybe that’s for the best. It was a chaotic day.” She folded up the poles and leathers in quick order before stuffing them back into the saddle bags and strapping them shut again. “Lay down so I can put these back on you, please.”
“Please? Finally know who you’re speaking to, eh? You’re making a better servant than I expected.” The dragon chuckled and laid down where Tifse would be able to affix the bags to the saddle again.
“Oh shut it. I can still just abandon you in the desert if I want. It’s easier than you’d think to get lost out there.” She was getting a hang of the many straps and buckles on the saddle. She was done quicker than normal and climbing back into the saddle in no time.
Safraxi flexed her wings, stretched every inch of her body, and made sure she was good and warmed up before the flight. There was a small twinge of soreness left, but it shouldn’t be a problem. She only needed to clear a relatively small gap into southern Eskany. Once she was on the opposite shore she could safely land and walk whenever needed, or fly further if she felt capable.
“Alright, Pipsqueak, ready to fly?” She dug her claws into the sand and lowered herself for a launch.
“Are you?” Tifse leaned in close and braced herself. “Come on, show me what you’ve-”
Safraxi rocketed up from the beach and over the water without warning. She was pumping her wings harder than she ever realized possible. In no time at all she was near the clouds, riding the currents Amjazel had taught her to find and follow. Her heart ached at the thought of the dragon. Once again she was torn. How long would she have to put up with this torture?
“Hey, focus on the horizon, Safi.” Tifse rubbed the side of her dragon’s neck. “Don’t think about them. Just focus on what we’re doing.”
“Yeah… right. Yeah.” The dragon snorted and slowed her wing beats as the currents carried them both. In no time at all they couldn’t see a shore in any direction. It was unnerving, being unable to see nothing but water, especially on such a clear and cloudless day as this. The world seemed unnaturally flat, with only the curvature of the planet giving them any sense of shape to the endless plain surrounding them.
Safraxi couldn’t help but notice Tifse seemed to be trying to keep something to herself. She was clearly exhibiting habits that they had both been taught in their mental communication training to avoid thinking about something. “She’s probably just thinking about Audirei more. Wish she’d stop being so obvious about it though.” She huffed. It was almost distracting how hard Tifse was trying to obfuscate her thoughts.
Safraxi went for hours without any issue. Her body was young and rapidly developing still, and the second flight wasn’t any challenge at all, compared to the first. In addition, the winds were on her side this time. She made it across Fell Lake in good time, only two hours, and even managed to continue for another six before giving out in the Stefaian panhandle.
The two had left Fell Lake behind and flown inland, following the twin rivers of Stefaial’s east and west borders in its thin northern strip. This area of Stefaial was fairly dry, like the south, but rather than the sandy dunes in the main body of the country, the northern parts were all rocky and mountainous. Safraxi found herself flying between them, more than over them, but the powerful winds created as air was forced between the great stone monoliths were exactly the boost she needed to keep such a good pace.
Tifse had continued to navigate for them, and had Safraxi stop for the night near the town of Teris Fal (she explained to Safraxi that Fal just meant coast in Stefaian). They would only need to fly another hour on the next day and they’d be in Saris Fal.
Stefaial was, fortunately, a much more welcoming nation, relatively speaking. Tifse was able to buy an entire ox for her and Safraxi to split from one of the farms peppered along the river basin Taris Sal was built along. They built a bonfire on the shore with driftwood and roasted the entire thing in one. Safraxi was so famished she barely left any bones behind.
Tifse had never seen her eat that way before. The last two weeks had mostly been meat that was pre-butchered and cooked up by Emren, and not the whole animals that Safraxi had been fed for her first few days as a dragon when her nutritional needs were at their highest.
The fox couldn’t help but sit and let herself become absorbed in her dragon’s senses as she tore the roasted animal limb from limb with her bare claws and teeth. It was a hypnotic and visceral experience unlike anything she’d witnessed before.
Safraxi sucked the marrow from every bone in the beast’s body, even crunching down and swallowing large pieces of bone in the process. Dragons were hardy creatures, and she’d learned in her dragonology classes that they needed to eat bone to keep their scales hard, as well as replace ones that they’d shed in the past. Either way, the fox was transfixed up until the point Safraxi was finally licking her chops clean and dunking herself in the lake to clean the guts and viscera off of herself.
“What’re you staring at, pipsqueak?” She shook off the water and stomped back up onto the sand to lock eyes on the fox with a glare.
“Oh, nothing.” Tifse snapped her gaze away, bashful. She didn’t mean for Safraxi to notice her staring.
“Oh nothing my ass, what?” The dragon brought her eyes down to level with her rider.
“You uh- you’re impressive. When you’re eating. Very thorough.” The word ‘stunning’ flashed across her mind, but was quickly quashed.
Safraxi squinted at the comment. She’d picked up on the word as it had appeared and disappeared in a near instant. “Yeah, dragons are impressive at eating, I guess.” She shoved the fox over with her snout and got up in her face while she was on the ground. “We sleepin’ on the beach again tonight?”
Tifse grunted and kicked back at the dragon’s face with her boot in protest. “You asshole! What was that for?”
Safraxi took the first kick straight to her snout but caught the second in her teeth.“For lying. Now, we sleeping on the beach again?” There was a smirk in her voice.
“Whatever, I don’t care.” Tifse fought to free her foot again but pulled her bare foot free instead as her boot stayed behind. “Are you going to shift back and help with the tent?”
“Nah, I’m sick of being in anthronoid forms. It’s so stifling.” She turned and spit the boot back out into the water. “I can help hold things up with my head though.”
“Fine, I’ll do all the work, again.” Tifse growled back before yanking off her other boot and hurling it square between the dragon’s eyes. “I’m getting my other boot back and then I’m going to set the tent up.”
“What do you mean all the work? I just flew most of the fucking day to get us here!” Safraxi hooked the dry boot on one of her tail spikes and hurled it even further into the water, past Tifse as she waded in.
“You- YOU-” The fox seethed as the second boot sailed over her and landed in the waves with a sploosh. “Leave my boots out of this!” She turned and chucked one up past the dunes and into the tall grass beyond.
Safraxi chuckled and ducked down, unsure what the trajectory of the boot would be. “You don’t need those boots with me flying-” Her eyes locked onto something behind her rider in the water, slowly approaching. “Tifse, get out of the water.”
“What? I still need my other boot.” Tifse turned and put her hands on her hips. “I don’t even see it out here now! I think it sank!”
Safraxi began to sneak forward, placing each claw in the sand with the delicate care to not make any sudden noises or movements. “I’m serious, out of the water. Now.” She attempted to share her sense of urgency with the fox. “Come on, get closer to me, Tifse. Slowly.”
“Wh-” She took an uncertain step toward the dragon. All of her fur was standing on end all of a sudden. The shore was about twenty feet away now, and she was up to her waist in the water. She would not be able to move quickly at all, and she could sense Safraxi’s growing apprehension as whatever was behind her moved closer. Was the water getting hotter?
Suddenly the dragon jolted forward and sprinted into the lake, wings flapping hard and skimming the top of the surf. Tifse dropped down into the water as Safraxi shot over her and slammed into something else.
A colossal eel, as big around as the thickest point in Safraxi’s chest, and longer than either could get a true sense for in the water, had burst out of the lake and tried to snap up the little fox. Instead it found a furious dragon pushing it back and clawing at it. Safraxi tore several massive gashes along the sides of its face and neck. Gallons of red, gooey, and sweet smelling blood spilled out into the water beneath the dueling beasts as the dragon attempted to push it back.
It seemed surprised to meet any kind of resistance and she seemed to initially have it on the back foot, but even as she inflicted new grievous wounds to it she could see them healing back almost just as fast. It was beginning to snap back at her. She kept her horns pointed forwards to try and push it back and keep it from reaching her softer points. Her back scales and spines were better suited for resisting its attacks, and it didn’t seem able to draw blood from her after a few strikes, but she could feel a few small scales being torn free, and small stinging burns anywhere it struck. The water around it was steadily growing in temperature until it felt scalding. It was throwing off an intense heat around it. She could barely see through the steam that was beginning to rise around the two of them.
Once she sensed Tifse was free from the water she opened up and attempted to blast it with her cold breath. It was her first time trying to use it intentionally, but she knew now that she could, and she needed to create distance. She let out a few awkward, hacking, and uncomfortable coughs before locating the core of her chest she needed to pull the magic from, and released a spray of frigid air that froze not only the slimy skin of the eel, but the caps of the waves around it. It hissed and thrashed, and she took the opportunity to pump her wings and push herself back out of the water, spraying cold all the way.
The eel ducked under the water again with a colossal splash, sending scalding water spraying all over Tifse on the water’s edge. Safraxi crashed back first into the sand. She’d never tried to fly backwards before, and she’d tilted in the air midway back. Her spines ached as they’d been slammed into the ground at an awkward angle, and her back scales stung anywhere that the eel had struck. “The fuck was that thing?” She groaned and slowly rolled back over to her front.
“It’s me needing to buy a new pair of boots.” Tifse kicked a small dune of sand into the water and chucked her remaining boot into the lake. “We aren’t sleeping out here tonight.”