Chapter 12: Morning in Arieton
Goren awoke before Kashira. The sun was not even fully up yet, so only gray light seemed to shine through the slats of the barn. Of course, he had already slept through most of yesterday. The stable was quiet, and Kashira’s body pushed lightly to him with each deep breath in and out. He sat up, drew his knees to his chest, and rested his chin on them as he considered his situation. A week ago, I was sitting on the floor of my master’s studio with the other two, wondering what we would do while he struggled to take another breath. And now… He felt soothed in some ways, listening to her breathe, the regularity, how noisy each one was, the pressure of them as her lungs expanded against his back…
He reached up and touched the collar resting around his neck. And now I belong to a dragon… who just casually plucked me out of a snowstorm and probably saved my life. He looked at her leg, at the wing still resting above him. She is so big. It’s three or four times my height to the top of her head when she stands. Her paws can pick me up without trouble. It was a little remarkable how gentle she could be despite her size.
Goren sat for a while, just feeling the collar as he rotated it around. There was no seam or clasp that he could find to remove it, not that he was trying to do so. Then, he rubbed along the heavy cloak he was wearing and the tunic: it was soft against his fluff with the weight of the quality fabric. I feel unequal to this. What can I offer someone with this kind of wealth? What can I even do to keep her interested in someone like me? What will happen if she gets bored?
These kinds of thoughts were making him anxious. He breathed out slowly; he should do something else, so he cautiously moved away from her. She deserved to sleep, but he was feeling wakeful. He did his best to be silent and careful about getting out from beneath her wing. Just as he was fully out and around her head and paw, there was a grumble from her that froze his heart as he thought he had been caught sneaking away. After a few heart-pounding slow seconds, she just shoved her nose a little more beneath her wing. He released his held breath and smiled.
He made his way out of the barn, walking softly over the straw and leaving through the side door.
It was cold in the barn, especially without a dragon wrapped around him, and it was very nippy in the gray light of the street he stepped out on. This time of day, he was often up, unloading the day’s supplies from the merchant that stopped by every morning for the painting master, and before that he was getting up for farm work. His breath curled out in front of him, and he didn’t know what to do with himself because all that was before his whole world turned upside down.
“Hey there, you’re that jayune that came in with the dragon?”
The voice was big, and it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he looked to the side and then up at the very tall, red-haired woman. “Y-yes,” he said uncertainly. His ears folded back a bit as he craned his neck to meet her eyes, and from this perspective, he was keenly aware of how her breasts stood out from her waist and how thick her legs really were.
“Come on inside,” she said, shifting not just one large keg on her shoulder, or even two, but three of them wrapped in her arm, and she had a massive sack of flour on her other hip.
“Okay!” He got the door for her.
She ducked as she entered; the door was about two feet shorter than her. “Thanks. Haven’t seen a dragon in forever. What she doin’ here? Your pretty blue collar new?”
“Yes. I think we’re leaving again after today, but she has mentioned coming back again,” he said with uncertainty. He had to get on tiptoes to pull the tall door shut. He watched her pick her way around tables and chairs.
“That will be somethin’, you know, havin’ a dragon in town. Every town loves a dragon, uh, patron; no one loves a dragon… tyrant.” The giantess glanced at him with a raised brow. “She from the Upper Side?”
“I… haven’t known her long,” Goren said uncomfortably, “but… she seems like more the patron type. I guess? I don’t know where she’s from.” He didn’t know why, but he felt a little pang of defensiveness. He did know that she was generous with her money and her behavior toward him. Does the Upper Side mean the north of Faegrin? He’d only ever heard rumors about dragons there ruling the country or something.
The giant woman grinned. “Sorry, it was not my intention to be rude with my questions. Just curious.” She set the kegs down with loud thumps and then the flour bag. She stretched. “How was dinner last night? Any requests for breakfast? My name’s Zunira.”
“Uh, I’m Goren. What do you normally serve?”
Her grin brightened. “Usually, pancakes! But with what your dragon paid last night, anything you can think of, you can have.”
He felt discomfort again, and he remembered how Kashira mentioned that the normal reaction to her is to be afraid, but there was also the fixated type of reaction, based on any ideas about dragons that the person had. “I’m sure whatever you are planning to make will be fine.”
“Noted. Do you want a drink or a snack or anything? There’s an empty room if you want to sit and read something?”
He hesitated but then decided that Kashira had given them plenty of money. “Hot tea, please, and, if you have it, a paper sketchpad and pencil?”
She smiled. “Excellent.” She disappeared for a moment, and when she came back into view, it was with a thermos of warm tea, some sort of sweet bread, and a notebook with a pencil and a knife for sharpening it.
“How’s that?”
“Great, thank you!” He accepted the stack of goodies that she held easily in her hand, but he had to shuffle some into pockets before he could take it all. He returned to the barn.
It was still cold, so he picked his way carefully around her paw. I wonder if I can get back beneath her wing without disturbing her or if I should find somewhere else to lean on her? The barn was cold, so he definitely wanted to be in contact with her to ward off the chill.
She stirred. “How dare you escape?” She yawned, wing tucking back to her side.
His heart rate jumped. “Obviously only temporarily. The innkeeper is anxious to be friends, I guess.” He didn’t move toward her until she reached out with a big front paw to herd him to her side once again with it. He huffed, settling on the blanket with his back to her.
“Well, I did throw a lot of money at them. Up early because you slept a lot yesterday, or did you get cold?” She yawned.
“I think it is just that I slept a lot. But you can sleep some more if you want. It’s still a few hours until the second hour of light.”
She yawned. “Yes, all right, but if you wander again, my dear Goren, I’m going to put you in timeout.”
“It doesn’t do any good to threaten me with something you are probably planning to do later today regardless of what I do now,” he said with a raised brow.
“Hmm, I suppose you have a point. So, I should just start right now with it?” And she raised her head, opening her mouth as if to scoop him up.
It was too early in the morning to be presented with those jaws. In the pale morning light her teeth were very white, and saliva was slightly shiny on the big, flexing, pink tongue. Her lips were curled mostly over her teeth to cover them as her mouth loomed near, and he flattened against her side. He dropped everything to push on her lower jaw. “Noooo,” he said, the sound drawn out as he got a bit worried. To his surprise, her jaw moved when he pushed on it.
Kashira chuckled, and then she tilted her head to approach at a different angle, but he pushed on her nose, and it stopped her, and her nose end moved in the direction of his shove. He huffed, and wrapped both arms around her nose, making her close her mouth. “There. Much better,” he declared.
She laughed in a way that came out as a series of humming sounds as he held her nose and kept her mouth shut. She didn’t try to reply, so he guided her head down to lay near him, nose pointed more toward his feet. He was surprised, but pleased, when she just shifted slightly to get comfortable and then closed her eyes and stayed there.
He ate his sweet roll, sipped his tea, and heard from her breaths that she had gone back to sleep. He spent a few hours just sketching the side profile of her face, trying to capture the way her scales fit together along her cheek. It was soothing, and he was fully into it when Joyra made a soft knocking sound. “It is the second hour; shall I bring breakfast?”
Kashira didn’t respond, so Goren adjusted his position so he could pat her shoulder. Kashira yawned, and Joyra repeated his question. “Oh, yes, thank you. Can I send you or Merza to fetch a few things for me?”
Joyra came into the barn. “I am fully at your service!”
Kashira’s tail and all the fluff that was at the end of it settled over Goren’s legs and around his waist as her wing folded down against her side.
“If you do not mind the walk, I would like you to take some of the money from last night and help me acquire a drying enchantment or spell? And if it cannot be done, then, extra towels.”
“For the amount of gold you provided yesterday, I would be quite happy to walk anywhere. Do you have specific breakfast requests?”
“Whatever the chef has prepared for breakfast shall be fine, naturally,” Kashira said. “My priority this morning is speed; I need to leave as soon as possible.”
The snow leopard-like kobold bowed and left. Goren felt sudden anxiety about gnolls. Right after breakfast, they were leaving to confront the creatures that might have killed his family. He didn’t want to think about the storm or the smoke or the hideous howls and laughter…
“You were sketching, my apprentice artist? Can I see?” Kashira’s voice came to him as if from far away. He had almost forgotten somehow that she was there, that there was anything in the world at all except himself and the feeling that he should not think too much.
Heat flooded his cheeks as he tilted the sketch toward her. “I was trying to get a sense for how to convey dragon scales.”
“It’s wonderful. Tell me more about it,” and as he explained, the feeling of being trapped with his own thoughts drifted away.