She recruited Hunagu to help carry a huge armful of new sheepskins up the mountain the following morning, but he beat a hasty retreat afterward, casting nervous glances at Shimmerith and at Emblazon, drifting lazily on the breezes above the volcano. Emblazon was being unusually attentive, she thought. And Shimmerith, unusually lazy. They would not appreciate a disgraced Pygmy girl stirring up any further trouble. She should put her head down and try to be invisible.
Nak, star Dragon Rider and apple of nobody’s eye more than his own, declared that his ‘lackey’ had given Shimmerith quite enough attention and his own roost could do with a clean-up, Dragon-swift. Pip deliberately stuffed green herbs up her nose in the Pygmy way, before entering his room.
“Very funny,” said Nak. He stalked out of the cave, miffed.
What do I do with these?
Pip asked, much later that afternoon, holding up a pair of under-shorts which were brown and furry with mould. She pulled something else out from beneath the bed.
Oh, my life … this is disgusting. What is it?
I think it was women’s underwear, perhaps, several centuries ago?
Shimmerith offered.
Garbage pile.
No wonder Oyda doesn’t like him.
Nak chose that moment to appear at the cave entrance with a pretty Dragon Rider Pip did not know. “Out!” he commanded, hooking a finger over his shoulder.
“Oh, she’s a sweet little one,” said the woman.
Sweet? Pip rescued the filthy underwear out of the refuse pile. “Nak, where shall I put these for you?”
Nak had the grace to flinch. The other Dragon Rider patted him on the arm. “Maybe another time, Rider. Your roost seems a little busy.”
“You!” Nak howled at Pip, and dashed off after the woman.
Shimmerith rolled her eyes in a droll, Human-like way.
He’s a fool where women are concerned, Pip. Don’t mind, he’s not a bad man.
Pip wondered at the note of pride in her voice. What was it between Dragons and their Riders? She did not think a great deal of his behaviour.
* * * *
The following afternoon, after class, Pip lugged a mound of fresh bedding up the mountain for Nak. Shimmerith had shown her the ‘waste disposal system’, as she put it. She aimed a blast of Dragon fire at the refuse pile outside the cave, and burned it to ash. Pip swept the ledge afterward.
On her way past the lake, she came across a group of fledglings, Dragons one to three years old, playing at the lake’s edge. They were already thirty to forty feet in length, and the older fledglings were bigger still. They bugled and hissed at her as Pip, resembling a walking laundry pile, trudged by. One Red, brasher than the rest, tripped her up with a cunningly placed wingtip.
“By my belly-fires,” he called to the others. “It’s the imp who insulted Shimmerith.”
“Yes, and I’m paying for it every day, so please let me past,” said Pip, grumpier than a Dragon with a stomach ache. “Rider Nak needs his bed made.”
The Red Dragon flexed his claws and struck a fine pose. Pip, who had flown on Emblazon, decided the forty-foot youngster was being silly. “Ooh,” she cooed. “You’re so
massive
.”
“Well, I am the biggest …” he began to preen, before snapping, “If you insult one Dragon, you insult us all. How shall we punish her, Dragon-kin?”
“Roast her fur,” said the Green.
Another Red jostled her from behind. “See what happens if a Dragon stands on her chest?”
Pip dropped the laundry. “You know what I’ll do to you?”
“Oh, but you’re not allowed to use your magic,” the first Red said, archly. “The Elders decreed it, didn’t they, Human runt?”
Fists balled up, she shouted, “Let me past!”
“Not until you’ve had a flying lesson,” said the Red, clutching her ankle. Before she could blink, Pip was dangling upside-down a hundred feet above the lake shore. “Why don’t we play catch? Catch.”
The Green’s paw snagged her tunic a whisker above a boulder. He spiralled lazily upward, saying, “Careful, Red, or you’ll feel Blazon’s fire. Wait, Imogiel’s calling us.”
“Aw, and I was having fun.” The Red snapped playfully at Pip’s swaying hair. “Toss her into the lake.”
Pip landed gracefully in the water, but bruised her tailbone on a hidden boulder. The fledglings were already winging up to the crag where Imogiel awaited them.
“Bullies.”
She waded out of the lake, soaked. Oh well, there was nothing for it. Nak and Shimmerith were on patrol, and chances were good the only creatures she’d meet up the mountain were Dragons. Pip took off her clothes and laid them on a flat obsidian boulder to dry. There. She was jungle-clad.
When she returned, she swam in the lake to cool off. Well, the temperature was too warm to truly cool, but still beautiful. The water tingled against her skin, full of a liquescent magic which seemed to massage her skin with prickles of a not unpleasant foreboding. Lovely. Life in the Academy was not so bad. Pip went to retrieve her clothes, and found only a pile of ash left on the boulder, with a Dragon’s claw-mark deliberately smudged through it.
“Bullies!” She shook her fist at the sky, where the fledgling group was taking lessons in aerial acrobatics from Imogiel.
Fine. Pip, naked as any jungle animal, marched back to the Academy, steaming like a pot of water left too long on the boil. First the students, now the Dragons. Did everyone have to pick on her?
She took the steps up to the field outside the dining hall two at a time. Deserted. However, three-quarters of the way across the open area, Nak emerged from the portico and strolled down the path toward her. Pip halted. Nak halted, too.
He stared at her with a strangely wistful gleam in his eye.
For the first time in her life, Pip felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She did not trust that look.
Advancing upon her, Nak declared, “Ah, thou gentle breath of the forest, thou art a flower of surpassing splendour–nay, a precious bud, ripe for the plucking.”
Pip blushed furiously. “Nak, don’t look …”
“Don’t look? Fie, the beauty of such a petal as thee should be celebrated, not hid from the admirer.” He seized her wrist. “Come away with me, my delight, my inspiration, and I shall lead thee by pleasant paths to the Isle of–”
“No!”
Nak seemed hurt, but he managed to rally with another descent into the ancient poetic language, “Surely the Island-World doth sing in mine ears, dear flower of the jungle, as it does in thine? Shall I not woo thee most gently, with words of poetry?”
A strange warmth filled her belly. Pip had never imagined a man could make her feel so befuddled.
At that moment, the entire class of second year boys came jogging around the corner of the kitchen building, no doubt on a training run, but as they caught sight of Nak and a very nude Pip apparently holding hands, the foremost runner of their group gaped and tripped over his own feet. Boys piled upon boys. Gasps and whistles and catcalls rose from them as they sorted themselves out.
Boys–did they have to stare as if they’d never seen a naked girl before? Pip raised her sharp little chin. “Ha!” And she marched off toward the girls’ dormitory.
“Pip. Student Pip!” A roar came from overhead. Pip shaded her eyes. Twenty stories up, Mistress Mya’adara leaned out of a window. “We do not run around butt-naked in mah school! Yah get in here this instant! When Ah get a hold of yah, girl, yah’d better wish yah were being thrashed by a Dragon.”
She burned as she fled into the dormitory building.
Y
aETHI HALTED Pip
with an outstretched arm. “Just checking–you are wearing clothes today, right?”
“Oh, flying-sheep-funny, Yaethi.”
Maylin, who occupied the bunk above Yaethi’s, sat up sleepily. “Keep it down to a dull roar, will you? Honestly. Oh, Pip, where are you going at this ridiculous hour?”
“I’m supposed to bathe and clean Shimmerith in the hot springs today,” she said, pulling a face. “It’s part of my training.”
“That’s so unfair,” Yaethi complained, who had apparently managed to snag her arm while still being entirely covered by her blanket, right over her head. “The week’s over. Today’s a rest day. You should be snuggled under your covers–”
“For those who insult Dragons and cavort naked with Dragon Riders in front of the whole school, apparently not,” Maylin pointed out, helpfully.
Pip’s pout turned into a smile as Kaiatha mumbled, “Want some help?”
“Great idea!” shouted Maylin.
Groans of discontent rose from the whole dorm. “Shut your traps!” “Islands’ sakes.” “Go back to sleep.” “Idiots. Where’s the respect?”
Everyone was secretly worrying about the next cut to the first year student body, which was due the following week, but the subject was taboo. Telisia had been hinting at Pip ever since the examinations. Pip held her tongue. She had graced Master Kassik’s carpet once more after the incident with Nak. Having Kassik and Mya’adara bellow at her in concert was novel. Master Alathion had been sniggering all along in the next office. Pip now understood how big people felt about clothing. Strange, but there it was. ‘Indecent?’ She could not think of a single word in Pygmy to express that idea.
In short order, Pip and her overexcited friends hiked out toward the volcanic lake, loaded up with bristly Dragon brushes and nail-clippers suitable for chopping down decently-sized shrubs, arm-long nail files, thin daggers for rooting out parasites, and a large bucket of a special concoction for polishing and protecting Dragon scales. On the way they recruited Casitha into the party, complete with harp and nothing better to do with her rest day, she said.
Shimmerith was already lazing in a steaming half-moon pool alongside the lake, which was fast becoming Pip’s favourite place in Jeradia, despite her recent flying lesson there. Even Maylin fell silent as they approached the sleek Blue Dragon. There was something awesome about the way a Dragon overshadowed any other living creature that made words superfluous. Shimmerith lumbered out of the pool, towering more than twenty feet overhead before lowering her muzzle to smile at them.
“Sulphurous greetings,” she rumbled. “Quite the committee, Pipsqueak.”
“It’s a Dragon sized task,” Pip retorted. As none of her friends seemed brave enough, she pushed them forward for introductions. She added, “We even arranged musical accompaniment for your bath, o mighty Shimmerith.”
The Dragoness stretched lazily. She waddled around the edge of the pool before settling down in a warm spot. Even her waddle had a mesmerising, sinuous grace about it that simply shouted, ‘Dragon!’
She said, “I am about to fly away to Dragon paradise. Scrape and scrub, minions.”
Maylin rolled her eyes at Pip. “She can’t be serious.”
“To work, minion,” smirked Pip.
To her surprise, the Pygmy girl found herself directing operations as the team stripped down to their swimming gear in preparation for Shimmerith’s bath. She showed them how to find and remove mites, and demonstrated the clearing of ear canals, to Yaethi’s vocal disgust. Soon, Kaiatha and Maylin were gaily tossing buckets of hot water over Shimmerith’s back, while Casitha and Pip wielded the brushes, starting at Shimmerith’s suggestion at the spine-spikes at the highest point of her back.
“Ooh, that’s delicious!” Shimmerith groaned. “You’ve no idea how sensitive Dragon hide is. It might seem armoured and impervious to Dragon fire, but there are many nerve endings near the surface. Casitha, a little to your left. That spot itches.”
“You’re nothing but an overgrown, scaly rajal,” Casitha said boldly. “You’re going to start purring in a moment.”
“Dragons purr,” she said. “We sing, too.”
The girls warmed to their work as the suns rose above the volcanic rim and the day’s heat truly set in. Pip spotted a family of rare giant tortoises grazing on the grasses along the lake shore, their distinctive sharp-edged patterning resembling Dragon scales to a remarkable degree. They stood four feet tall–her height, Pip reminded herself crossly. She wondered if tortoises had their own language. Might she have grown that vital half-inch to hit four feet tall?
“You know, this is fantastic training,” said Yaethi, ever the practical one, wielding a file the size and shape of a sword on Shimmerith’s right foreclaws. “Why don’t they teach all first years about Dragons like this, rather than reading them scrolls of epic poetry? I’ve learned more about Dragons in ten minutes than the whole of the last six months.”
“But your heart’s still racing,” Shimmerith purred sweetly. “Relax, little one.”
“She’s just
awesome
,” said Maylin, sawing at a piece of sheep’s tendon stuck between the Dragoness’ teeth. “Would you look at these fangs?”
“And beautiful,” said Kaiatha, scrubbing her way down to the barbed tail-tip. She said:
Thou art my Dragon-love,
Thou jewel of the suns-rise, thy scales,
Alight with the dawn.
“Our friend Rallix,” said Pip, as Shimmerith crooned her approval. “Sixty-third stanza.”
“You’re nothing but a little show-off!” cried Maylin, shoving her into the pool. She didn’t mind, but the water was very hot.
Pip, who had worked out why Shimmerith looked a little heavy in the belly, made it her business to deal with the Dragon’s neck and head. She knelt on top of Shimmerith’s brow-ridge, and whispered,
Are you pregnant, Shimmerith?
Am I growing fat, do you mean? Shh, don’t tell Nak. Yes, Pipsqueak. Three eggs.
Wonderful news!
Yes, but I need to brood soon and Nak’s not going to understand. He’ll think I hate him. The Dragon way is to go into seclusion, Pip, because a brooding Dragon mother is dangerous–it’s instinctive and impossible to control. Even the male Dragons respect that.
As she spoke, Nak came jogging down the path from his roost, rubbing his eyes. But he perked up at the sight of a bevy of swimsuit-clad female students pampering his Dragon. Pip had to admit, he looked halfway decent in the new clothes Mistress Mya’adara had sent over for him, after she had overheard the laundry team shouting in disbelief at the state of what Pip had cleared out of his room. Nak positively strutted down the path, hooking his thumbs behind his shiny new belt-buckle.
He said, “I say, is it an all-girls party, or can an old reprobate join in? Who are your delightful friends, Pip? Shimmerith, my beautiful Dragon-love, are these eager young students treating you as you deserve?”
“Better than you,” she purred, her jewel-like eyes sparkling despite being half-slit against the bright suns-shine. “Take note, my Rider-heart. Take note.”
Pip made introductions, rolling her eyes inwardly at Nak’s manner. Heavens above and Islands below, did he have to choose this morning to wake up early? Well, the hour was nearing noon. Shimmerith’s bath had taken far longer than anticipated.
“Ah, Maylin,” said Nak, gazing deeply into her eyes before bowing fluidly over her hand. “Thy golden skin shines like a thousand suns, thou empress of the Eastern Isles. Thou needest no sword to slay a man but with thine molten gaze.”
To her annoyance, Pip saw her brash, confident friend dissolve into a bowl of prekki-fruit mush. Yaethi cleared her throat as if to make a sarcastic comment, but she became Nak’s next victim.
Seizing her hand earnestly, he sighed, “Ah, thou art the very splendour of the Northern Isles! Would that I were a scroll, that my life might be tenderly unfurled by thee, Yaethi of heavenly Helyon, and scribed in thy peerless hand.”
Masterful, Pip thought, as Nak apparently fought some consuming emotion and lost the battle. Yaethi said something intelligent, like, ‘Thwibble,’ as she blushed to the roots of her hair.
Amazing, isn’t it?
Shimmerith said drily.
Like a Dragon power for seducing Human ladies.
Doesn’t work on me.
Really, Pipsqueak? Or were you trying to entice him?
Pip smacked her on the head.
Rascal. You know me better than that.
Careful Emblazon doesn’t warm you up for a snack. And, a chattering dragonet tells me Oyda was ranting about your behaviour yesterday. Watch out for erupting volcanoes, little one.
For a moment, the shifting patterns of Shimmerith’s saucer-sized iris mesmerised her. Pip realised the Dragon was looking to the north. She staggered as an unexpected wave of desire blazed over her–where had that come from? Then she saw Emblazon, glowing like burnished brass in the late morning suns-light, furling his wings for a rapid descent. She felt a quiver run through Shimmerith as her belly-fires rumbled to life. Again, the power of a Dragon’s emotions overwhelmed her. She swayed and would have fallen save for Shimmerith’s quick catch.
Pip? Careful, scrap.
She chuckled.
Now I’m just a scrap?
She called to her friends, “Dragon incoming!”
“Oh, it’s Emblazon,” said Kaiatha, retreating from Nak, who had been about to work his dubious charms on her.
With a gust of wind that kicked up choppy wavelets, Emblazon landed in the shallows. His thick neck swivelled to regard the scene.
Thou, my suns-light,
he said to Shimmerith.
Thou, the moons above my Island,
she replied.
“Shimmerith, you look like an insect being attacked by ants,” he rumbled, in Island Standard. “May I join you?” Casitha squeaked as Emblazon stepped barely an arm’s-length from her foot. “Easy, little one. I’m not as fierce as they say.”
Nay? Thou surely frightened that little chick.
Ay.
Emblazon flexed mightily, playing to his audience just as shamelessly as Nak had. In his case, though, massively striated muscles popped everywhere and over a hundred feet of scales shimmered in the suns-light. Even Nak would find that hard to compete with. “Pip, does this service extend to other Dragons?”
“Mighty Emblazon, we were just talking about the need for this type of training for all first year students.”
“Were I Kassik, instantly approved,” he said, venting a fiery chuckle above their heads. “Apologies, little ones. Shimmerith, are you purring?”
How fares our clutch, o blaze of the dawn?
Thy eggs grow heavy in my belly,
she said, coy and fey in her glance
.
“I am. Let me introduce you.”
And Emblazon, Pip knows about our eggs.
What?
Pip stiffened at the note of betrayal in Emblazon’s voice.
Shimmerith turned to Pip.
Tell him, little one. He was on patrol. He doesn’t know.
I … speak Dragonish, Emblazon.
He stared at her for a very long time, his thoughts unreadable, his great flight muscles quivering with fury or dismay, she did not know which. But then, he smiled.
So much for that secret. Pip, how … your magic …
Kassik thinks I’m a Shapeshifter Dragon, mighty Emblazon.
His smile broadened.
Finally, I understand. By the breath of the Great Dragons, this is a mighty portent! I look forward to meeting your transformed self, your Dragon-self.
Before she could respond, he added,
I welcome thee to the family of Dragons, Pip.
She ducked her head, weeping in her heart.
Nak had shucked his tunic top to join the team polishing Shimmerith’s scales–perhaps shamed into caring for his Dragon, Pip thought, still enwrapped in wonder at the side-conversation between the Dragons. How romantic they were. Her eyes lit on Nak. The Dragon Rider’s lean, muscular torso sported a number of spectacular scars. He was short for a man, only Maylin’s height, but broad in the shoulder and his palms sported a swordsman’s calluses. He had taken the first year class several times after she had broken Master Adak’s arm, and was as fast as a striking snake with his blade.
She realised she was staring, and lowered her gaze. Maybe Shimmerith was right. How could Nak, of all people, make her feel this way?
Standing upon Emblazon’s back, Maylin shaded her eyes, gazing back along the path to the school. “Oh, here comes Hardak. Over here, Hardy!”
“I thought this was an all-girls party,” Yaethi pouted.
Maylin offered a grin so innocent that everyone knew something was going on. “Oh, I’m sure it’s just coincidence. Anyways, Nak’s here. I’ll go give him a push.” She walked off quickly, with a slight but discernable bounce in her step.
“Hmm,” said Yaethi. “I smell a large, hairy, stinky–”
“Six-weeks-dead rat,” finished Pip.
Nak asked, “What’s the gossip? Are they roosting together?”
As Maylin helped Hardak up the last uphill section, Yaethi gave Nak a withering look. “Students do not roost together, Rider Nak. It is strictly forbidden.”