Chapter 10: A Town with Collars
Kashira followed the memory of the rough map that Ciara had drawn for them until they found the tavern. She understood now why Ciara had recommended the Gentle Willow Bar: it was oversized. The windows were all tall, and she could see a faint glow of magic when she focused on them with her mindview, but they were much smoother than anything she had made. She wondered if it was done by a wizard with a proper spell circle or someone like her, but who was better at it than she was.
Inside, a ten-foot-tall or so woman worked behind a bar that looked comically small compared to her, coming just to her hip. She wore dark brown pants, and she had selected a shirt clearly designed to show off her chest, but less so her waist, for she was a little thickly built. Her hair was long and red and went down her back in a long braid. She noticed Kashira through the crystal windows and waved.
Kashira shifted her weight to lift her front paw and wave back. The giantess then pointed down to a kobold waitress. She reminded Kashira of a mouse, especially because she was on the smaller end of the spectrum for kobolds. She did not even come to the giantess’s knee, probably under two feet high. But it wasn’t just that; she was also covered in light gray fluff with rather large circular ears. The red-headed giant pointed outside, and the mouse-like kobold bobbed her head. She waved through the window at Kashira and then hurried to finish what she was doing.
Through the tall windows, in a far corner of the bar, a red-scaled lamia sprawled out with black markings. Near the center of those coils, a human man with dark hair and an intensely yellow collar struggles to wiggle himself free of her grasp. There is a moment where he almost broke away, but the lamia adjusted herself, wrapping him up so thoroughly that he vanished among the thick lengths of her body.
She thought Goren was seeing the same thing, because he got rather tense on her back, his hands gripping her mane hard enough to pull on it. “Is he going to be...?” There’s a breathless anxiety in his voice.
Kashira had been about to explain, but the mousy kobold waitress came out to them, wearing a green collar. She came up to Kashira, not looking too intimidated to see her. “Hi there! Were you looking to order something? We haven’t seen a dragon your size in a long time!” Her tone was chipper; she had an admiring look Kashira was used to seeing when interacting with kobolds.
Kashira didn’t explain why she didn’t change size, but she enjoyed the bubbly happiness the kobold seemed to exude, so she smiled. “Thank you for coming out to me. Yes, I would like plenty of food for both of us.” She tilted her head to one side to open the line of sight to Goren for the little mousybold. “Warm food, something like stew or bread or whatever you have that suits the weather and both of our needs.” With the waitress this close, Kashira felt she was barely half the height of Goren, who shifted awkwardly on her shoulders in response to being shown off.
“Sure! Do you also need a place to stay for the rest of the night?”
“Do you have somewhere that I can fit?” Kashira asked.
“Well, it is a barn, but the boss says you can stay in the back of it.” She seemed a little uncertain, maybe embarrassed to offer something like that as a place for a dragon to sleep.
Kashira was quite fine with a barn; it was likely one of the only structures around that might be big enough for her. “Sure, let’s have a look at it.”
The cute kobold led them around the side of the building to a dark green one near it. “Hey, Joyra? Can you open the big doors?”
“Sure, Merza,” came a masculine voice. A moment later, the big green and brown doors swung open, just tall enough to permit a dragon like Kashira to pass through. He blinked as he saw her feet, looked up, and saw her. “Oh, uh, hello, you are a guest?” He was another fluffy-style kobold, but he was white with silver spots and a very long, kitty-like tail and ears with a horn on the tip of his nose. He was about Goren’s height of just over five feet. “Or a mount?” He looked up at Goren with a grin.
“A guest!” Merza rushed to say, her face a little pink with a side-eye glance at Kashira.
“Also a mount, but not a very good one; I lost my saddle,” Kashira leaned into the tease, hoping to hear Goren huff a little. A second later, she was gratified. “Also, there are a lot of kobolds here?” she noted that Joyra had a green collar on also.
“Come on in,” Joyra said brightly as he moved inside and out of her way. Kashira followed him into the dimly lit barn, where it was a lot warmer. A horse or two snorted at her, but she didn’t go too near them. Hopefully, they would ignore her after a while. “Here in the back, we’ve got some open space,” he said, directing her to where there was some clearly fresh and clean straw laid out—not expecting a dragon perhaps, but maybe a few large animals since it looked like fences could be lowered down from the ceiling. “And yes, the Lady of the Inn likes us. We are close to the Grinwilds here in Arieton, so there are many of us who want to find good shelters!” He watched as Kashira sat near the center. “Does this look all right for you?”
“Yes, thank you.” Kashira reached into her pouch and took out another small bag of money, giving it to Merza. “I hope this will pay for the room and plenty of food?”
The mousebold had a similar reaction to Phaedra, “This is definitely too much.”
Kashira huffed. “Well, bring plenty of food, and then we will find out, yes? And also the rest can be a tip or shared.”
Joyra peered in the bag over her shoulder, got a bottlebrushy tail, and did a little hop. “Let me know when you’re off shift, Merza,” he said in a teasing tone. “I feel like I should confiscate you before our guest, the dragon, does so in exchange for such a large tip.”
Goren huffed. Merza blushed, waved his tease off, and headed inside.
“Quite an open tease,” Kashira said with a raised brow as she lay down so Goren could climb down easier.
“Well, she likes it, so I like doing it. Besides, according to the stories, it fits, since I look like a cat and she looks like a mouse.” His eyes went to Goren’s new collar briefly and then back to her. “So, how can I help with your sleeping arrangements? Do you need anything?”
“Blankets would be nice, and also something soft to be a layer between the straw and Goren’s clothes. It doesn’t bother me because I have scales… Then, also, something to serve as a chair and table for dinner for Goren,” she tilted her head toward Goren.
“Can do!” he said with a bright smile as he headed for the inn as well.
Goren slid down. “Things seem more… intense here than I am used to.”
“The Exotic Exchange makes everything more intense,” she said.
His ears flattened a little, and his wings were droopy against his back. “Was that a human with that... snake? I thought humans never came inland.” The way he looked at her made her feel like he was pretty unsettled in general.
She wondered if it was really the best for him to take him to the Exotic Exchange. It didn’t have branches in every city yet, but everywhere she had been with one had some miserable undertones. “It is also my understanding that humans are rare outside the trading ports, and we are far inland I think I have only seen five or six or so in my life.” She hummed, “The lamia might be more rare. That was the snake person. I thought they were unable to handle the cold, and there’s snow. I heard they only lived in the warm southern areas.”
Goren shook his head as he paced a little through straw. “And those two people were kobolds? I thought they were a different type of person, um... like I’m a Jayune...?”
Kashira nuzzled him as she hoped it would help him to calm himself some. “They were kobolds, and Phaedra at the Exchange was a kobold.”
He gave her a side-eyed glance. “The kobold I worked with in my master’s studio was scale-covered, and pretty small, like the... mouse-like one? I have never met a scaled Jayune. We would have called it a lizardfolk if we had.” There was a self-conscious flutter of his wings.
Kashira nodded. “I have also met a scaly kobold before.” She continued to nuzzle, and he leaned into her finally. “I think they are influenced by where their people are. I don’t know how the jayune say they came to be, but I think kobolds from the Grinwilds take on the traits of the forest gods that live there. I think when they are with dragons, which I’ve always heard they prefer, they look like your peer.”
Goren turned so he could rub her nose with his hands. “They said three forest gods, a rabbit, a deer, and an owl, all went into the Grin together. Then, centuries later, the Jayune emerged and fled far from the Grinwilds to settle where we could farm. I never… really believed that stuff.” He rubbed her nose. “We were attacked by a mountain lion years back, in Buetarn. It was so big and with strange tendrils coming off its face that grabbed whatever was near. It was so strong, it nearly broke the wall into the city with its teeth. The hunters and few guards spent hours fighting to finally drive it back into the woods, and it never came back. It was a forest god. I have never believed something like that could make something like a Jayune, even inside the Grin.”
Kashira tipped her nose slightly back and forth, nuzzling him as he cuddled up to her, which made her feel warm flutters in her chest. “I have never been to the Grin, I don’t think anyone who has dared to do so came back the same. The forest gets more frightening the deeper you go into it.” She had tried the woods when she had first escaped, but back then, she didn’t feel big or strong enough to hold her ground against the giant beasts that called the Grinwild home. Right after encountering her first one, she had flown toward the coast until she found the ruins of the castle.
“I’ve never thought I would be this far from Buetarn. Before today, Feridan was the furthest that I had been from home.” He turned to look up at her. “But you could fly right over it, right? To the Northern Lands? I heard stories that there are many dragons there.”
Kashira knew there were, but she had never been. She didn’t belong; she had no idea what her ancestry was to get a title. “Here is good, I have a cute jayune here.”
Goren huffed, and his hand went to his throat. “So, why did you get me a blue collar? What does that mean? Those two people, uh, the kobolds were wearing green? And the human man was wearing yellow? Does it mean anything?”
“A blue collar will tell me roughly where you are, since you have a habit of wandering off,” Kashira teased him. She scooped him to her chest and nuzzled his face. “It will let me find you if you go finding trouble again. Plus, hearing you even when you are muffled is nice. It’s technically a surveillance collar, I think. The green ones are laboring collars; they make a person who wears them stronger. I don’t remember what yellow does. All that matters to me is that I can come for you, wherever you might go, so you will be able to stay out of trouble from now on.”
Kashira knew about one other color of collar very well, and she wasn’t letting that near anyone. Her neck itched, but she ignored it. She had a darling, cute, fluffy bunny to hold close.
She knows a lot about the Exotic Exchange, Goren thought, feeling a pleasant flush creep over his cheeks from her warm breath on his body and her nose nuzzling him all… well, it felt protective. I suppose “out of trouble” as long as we do not count you as trouble, he huffed at the very thought.
He put his hands up around her nose, and he thought about how she seemed… maybe a tiny bit insecure. Does it have to do with the Exotic Exchange? Or this town? Or something else? But he didn’t know if he was ready to ask her anything so sensitive when she pressed her nose into his arms like this.