I huffed, unimpressed. "But you aren't."
He just laughed as I pushed to my feet and headed up towards where Kanik and the orin girl were having their standoff. Neither was talking, but that actually made sense to me. Screaming at each other in unintelligible words was pointless. Instead, they were having a test of wills. I was pretty sure the girl was winning.
"Orin?" I asked as I approached.
My voice made her turn, and Kanik let out a relieved sigh. "This girl is determined to get herself killed."
"Mhm," I agreed, keeping my eyes on the skinny little orin. Then I patted the air, doing my best to encourage her to sit the same way I had this morning. "It's okay. No one's going to hurt you. Believe it or not, we're just trying to help."
Ourselves, but I didn't add that part. Nope, I was a smooth-talking bastard when I wanted to be, and hopefully my tone would be good enough. Maybe my colors? In truth, I had no idea what might make this foreign woman relax around me, but I was more than willing to try all of it.
With a heavy sigh, the girl actually sat. Nodding at her, I unfurled my own blanket and made myself a place against the tree. Tomorrow, my body was going to protest this decision, so Zasen could pay for me to get a massage. Preferably one from someone very cute.
Letting out an overly dramatic groan, I sank down to get comfortable. The whole time, the girl kept her eerily blue eyes on me. I made a production of shifting around, getting comfortable, and then patted my thigh.
Her eyes narrowed.
I rolled my eyes, making sure it was dramatic, then pressed my hands together and held them against my cheek in what I hoped was a universal symbol for sleep. Doubling down on the point I was making, I poked at my cotton-covered leg, showing it was soft, and then poked at the hard dirt of the ground, proving it wasn't.
"Pillow," I said.
She huffed so hard she snorted, and then flopped down on her own blanket again. Pissed. That was the only word I had for her reaction. Maybe she didn't say a word, but this girl was clearly not happy to have been caught.
So I cleared my throat, making her look at me again. "Out there," I said, pointing to show what I meant, "there are predators." Hooking my fingers, I clawed at the air and hissed. "They will eat you." I lifted my own arm to my mouth and pretended to bite at it, then pointed to her.
She didn't move, but I caught it when her eyes glanced over my shoulder and into the darkness.
So I kept going. "Kanik saved you." I hugged myself, unable to think of a better way to mime that. "And for the rest of tonight, I'm going to guard you."
So I flicked my tail up and extended my stinger, stabbing at the air as if there was a beast before me. For good measure, I added some fake punches, then blew on my knuckles as if I'd just decimated them all.
She giggled. It was a tiny little sound, and muffled, but when I looked back at her, the girl had a silly smile on her lips. Well, at least I was amusing. Too bad for her, I was also a lot faster than Kanik. If she tried to bolt again, she'd be lucky to make it around the tree.
Politician or not, we Dragons had been made to survive, and this world was not a very kind place. That meant we couldn't be too kind either.
Twenty-OneAyla
The brightness of light against my closed lids woke me the next morning. For just a moment, everything was okay. I was lying on my side with my head buried in my pillow. I could hear Callah moving around - but wait. Leaves?
I cracked my eyes open and saw nothing but black. The fabric was soft, but pressed against my cheek, and it ended in a pair of yellow feet. Sucking in a breath, I jerked back, trying to get as far away from the Dragon as possible, convinced I'd given him the wrong impression.
But his tail was twisted up in the chain attached my manacles. My movement startled the man-like thing awake. He yanked his tail back, freeing it from the twists of chain just as vehemently as I'd pushed away from him.
For a moment we simply stared at each other. After a little too long, he broke the stalemate by reaching up to rub at his eyes and mumble something under his breath. I had no clue what it meant, but he clearly didn't expect me to. Instead, the yellow Dragon simply pushed to his feet and made his way around the tree. A moment later, I heard fluid hitting the ground.
Eww. He was peeing? This close?
Not caring about my wounded feet, I limped my way down towards the road and the small fire the Dragons had built in the middle of it. My body hurt more than it ever had before, and every muscle was complaining about the abuse. That was the only reason I didn't try to slip away.
Last night, the brown one had caught me easily. I'd barely made it to the base of a tree before he simply wrapped his arms around me from behind, lifted, and carried me back. I'd hit him as hard as I could and kicked out with all my force, but it hadn't even slowed him down.
In other words, I was now their prisoner. I knew it, they knew it, and making another foolish escape attempt would only make them stop trusting me at all. If I ever wanted a chance, then I needed to hope I wasn't being marched to my death, give my body time to heal, and get smart about this.
So, once I reached the fire, I simply sat. The solid green Dragon was there, poking a stick at something in the embers. He glanced over, proving his eyes were as red as the lines that jutted from them over into his hairline, then the beast merely looked back at the flames.
Yet when the yellow one was done peeing, he called out as he made his way towards me. That caused the others to stir. One by one, they all came to sit around the fire, and the green one began handing out meat. I tried to refuse, but the Wyvern grumbled and gestured for me to taste or eat it.
With nothing else being offered, I did. Thankfully, it tasted close to the meal from last night, not the meat I despised. I simply didn't understand why they were all so insistent I eat it. The orange tubers were just as good, weren't they?
Maybe they were fattening me up for slaughter? Not that it made much difference. If I stopped eating, I might prove my point, but it would only make my escape harder. I knew that. Too many times in the compound, I'd been punished by having my meals removed for a day, and the one that followed was always miserable.
Giving in, I ate. I also drank, and somehow the water bottles were full again. The dark brown one checked my feet, looking at the cloth he'd wrapped around them, and the rest began to pack their things. This time, I knew to stand up on my own. I definitely did not want to get slapped again!
Then we walked. Today, the sun was just as warm, but there were more clouds, which meant I got breaks from the burning heat. None of them lasted very long, though. Sadly, they didn't really help with the oppressive brightness either - but the Dragons gave me the cloth for my head again.
When my shadow was beneath my feet, I looked around, expecting a repeat of the day before, but I was wrong. It seemed the rest of the group didn't have any interest in stopping. That was when the brown one moved to my side, giving me a cautious smile. I didn't smile back, but I did look him over.
Through the cloth, I could see his hide was a smooth, solid brown, except for the randomly placed black polka dots all over. The spots were largest on his back, turning into what reminded me of freckles on his hands, legs, and cheeks. His chin was a creamy color underneath. That faded - or at least changed - into the lavender I'd noticed yesterday. It was as if the color grew darker in the middle of his body, and it highlighted his muscles in a way I hadn't expected.
There were also two dark purple marks on the back of his neck. Maybe it was closer to the side? No, it was behind his ears, so that definitely counted as the back, but the true back of him was in that dark brown color. His short hair was the exact same shade of brown.
From my other side, the Wyvern chuckled, clearly aware of my inspection. I wrenched my eyes away, struggling not to blush at the impropriety. I'd thought the cloth over my eyes would make it hard to see what I was doing! Unfortunately, the Wyvern seemed to notice every move I made, and he was amused. His chuckle proved it.
He also kept the cloth damp throughout the day and encouraged me to use it liberally. Thankfully, I didn't feel quite as horrible as I had the day before. Yes, I was exhausted. Yes, everything hurt, but I wasn't as hot. This time, at least half the water soaking my chemise was from the bottle the Wyvern carried. The other half was my own sweat.
By the time my shadow began to stretch off to my right, the landscape had changed. It was hard to identify exactly what was different at first. Maybe the trees seemed cleaner? Then my brain registered why: the shrubs and vines that clung to the trunks in the forest had been cleared away, leaving space for grass. The path also widened into what could only be called a dirt road. Hard-packed clay - it had to be clay - felt like stone beneath my bare and aching feet, but our steps still raised dust.
The road wasn't straight. It bent around the largest of the trees and avoided massive rocks and other hazards that would make a straight line impossible. Each step brought a change in the sounds around us and the attitude of the group.