"Okay," she relented, "their people. The problem is you look like a Mole still, and your skin has been getting darker. Your friends? They will still be pale. They will look like hunters, Ayla. People will want to hurt them because they're scared of them. If you try to bring them here, it may not end well."
"But I have to," I said, hoping she could understand. "If I don't, they'll die in the compound - and in a worse way. We don't have medicine, you see. I only learned about using ethanol on the wounds by accident. Otherwise, we simply pull out the arrows and sew them up. Ms. Lawton picks us for the infirmary by how well we can stitch fabric!"
"No antibiotics?" she asked.
I shook my head. "It was all lost when we left the surface. When someone is sick or injured, we pray."
"Dear God," Naomi breathed softly. "Please tell me you know to wash before tending wounds?"
"Only because Mrs. Worthington told me," I admitted. "She said that kept the wounds from infecting as fast. In the books I read - that I wasn't supposed to know about - I learned all about germs and how to kill them, but things like antibiotics don't exist in the compound. Or anesthesia. Or numbing agent. None of it. We just have someone hold them down."
"No wonder you're trying so hard to learn everything," she said. "Okay. I'll leave a schedule for getting you immune to venom. I'd like to take it a little slow, though, because you're still underweight, Ayla. That will make it harder for your body to metabolize the venom."
"I'll do it," I promised.
"Honey, this isn't something you can try harder and make work. It's how your body works. So we'll go slowly. Better that than killing you by accident, right?"
"Okay," I agreed, willing to do anything so long as it meant I was allowed to get one step closer to being a part of this place.
"And the boys are going to get you some shoes. More clothes too, I think." She smiled at me, then turned her eyes to the hall and lifted her voice. "Okay, you three can come back down now!"
The thundering of their feet was even louder than before as the three men all rushed back into the living room. Zasen was the first. Kanik was right behind him. While Rymar tried to look like he hadn't hurried too much, his eyes were the ones that found me first.
"How's she doing, Doc?" he asked.
"She's fine," Naomi promised. "Zasen, your sutures are still beautiful. I'm also going to write up a schedule for her venom tolerance program. And while you work on that..." She crossed her arms and looked from man to man intently. "Shoes, boys. Ayla needs sandals and boots at least. She also needs more than these little dresses you're keeping her in."
"Pants," Zasen agreed. "Yes, Mom, I know."
"And I told her we'd start on the venom tolerance tomorrow," Kanik said. "She was up before me, and I woke at dawn."
"We'd probably just left," Rymar said.
I nodded. "I wasn't sleeping anyway, so I thought I'd remove the Moles from the house."
"Eight full hours of sleep," Naomi told me. "Any less, and you'll have to wait another day to start."
"I'll go to bed early!" I assured her, just as I'd said to Kanik that morning. "I promise!"
Then Naomi glanced over at her son. "Zasen, if I hear any of you are taking advantage of her sweet nature, I will amputate your tail, do you hear me?"
"Mom..."
"All three of you," Naomi snapped. "I raised you to be gentlemen, and don't think I won't do it. You'll be fumbling the whole time it regrows!"
"Regrows?" I asked.
"We can regrow our tails," Kanik explained. "And other things."
"We were designed to live in a hard world," Zasen told me. "We're good at it, Ayla."
But that wasn't what I was thinking about. It was the tail in the dining hall back in the compound. "So the Dragon who lost his tail..."
"It's not an uncommon injury," Naomi explained.
"The Moles have one hung up," I said, looking between all of them. "It's kinda brown and black, I think. It stinks, too. But Mr. Cassidy said it was cut from a Dragon and then the Wyvern went to feast on him. I know that part's a lie, but it's a Dragon tail!"
Zasen shoved a hand over his mouth. Kanik huffed out a laugh and turned away. Rymar, however, simply pressed his elbow against the corner of the room and then leaned into it.
"Did the color look familiar?" he asked.
"I don't know," I admitted.
"Tan, maybe a bit of green near the stinger, and black markings across all of it?" he pressed. "Ayla, that was Drozel's tail. One of the men who walked back here with us. A Mole cut it off and Zasen got Drozel away before shock set in."
"Before the Moles could kill him," I realized.
Rymar nodded slowly. "We all assumed they'd eaten the tail."
"No," I said. "They use it as proof the world is not a safe place. They tell the children it's proof of the monsters they tell us about in our school sermons. They also said the stinger on that tail was the only weapon they had left."
"Because that time they ran out of bullets," Zasen explained. "Since then, they always carry more. Lots more."
"Then we need more arrows like your blue ones," I told him. "Because the hunters in the infirmary with blue arrows? They're as good as dead without me there to help. They also die slowly."
"And there it is," Naomi said as she pushed to her feet. "The girl is going to make a great Dragon one day, boys. Just don't try to stop her."
"Nope," Zasen said, smiling at me. "We're trying to encourage her."
