“Vyrathion,” I finally pant. “Can we rest? Please?”
He doesn’t reply, just strides on until I lose sight of him.
“Vyrathion!”Damn. I may have to slink back to that village full of virgin cavemen after all.
“You’re holding me up,” comes a cold voice from right behind me.
I jump, heart racing. “Shit!”
“I knew this would happen,” Vyrathion sighs. “Your legs are short and you’re plainly not a creature of the jungle. Even if you try to keep up, you can’t.”
“Sorry,” I pant. “I just need a break.”
“Of course I can’t have this happen. I have places to go. Now tell me all you know about Praxigor’s hoard. It’s in the jungle, you said. Where in the jungle?”
I think fast. Of course there is no hoard the way Vyrathion means. “He flies, so I don’t know where he goes. But usually roughly towards the sunset.”
His eyes bore into me. “Towards the sunset? He only flies at dusk?”
“No, but he flies in the direction where the sun usually sets.”
“How long is he gone?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes long, sometimes… not so long.”
He frowns at my inane statement. “‘Not so long?’ Are you making fun of me, little female?”
My heart jumps in my chest, despite already racing. “No! It’s just… I don’t like looking at him. He scares me. He’s usually gone all day.”
“All day,” the dragon ponders. “To check on his hoard. It might be far away. But of course he will enjoy lying on his gold, so it might be a short way away, too, giving him time to properly enjoy it. Nothing you say helps me!”
I take a quick step back. “I… I’m trying. I just don’t know. Wouldn’t he want to keep his hoard secret?”
“Of course!” the dragon scoffs. “He would kill anyone he thought might suspect even what little you just said. Towards thesunset?Such a nonsensical idea- oh, this again!”
He looks past me. Two Plood aliens are waddling towards us.
I step out of their path. They give me the creeps, with their over-sized heads, big, black eyes and stubby limbs. They’re a blueish white, just come alive from their mushroom form. They’re the same kind of aliens that abducted me from Earth, so I have zero affection for them.
They walk up to Vyrathion and reach their hands up to him as if offering him something. It looks like branches and rocks.
The dragon quickly examines their objects, then slaps them out of their three-fingered hands. “Trash!” he yells. “You always bring me trash!Gold!I need gold, not this worthlessfilth!”
His anger has a telepathic element that pierces my brain with its fury, making me groan in terror.
The two Plood drop to their knees and knock their heads on the ground as they quickly crawl backwards past me, away from the irate Vyrathion.
He kicks at the items they brought, sending a huge shower of dirt that I have to duck to avoid. “Useless trash!”
I recover from the shock of the furious dragon. The Plood clearly want to serve him, and they are doing that the best way they know how. “Maybe they don’t know what gold is.”
He glares at me. “What? What did you say?”
“They were just… um… hatched,” I quickly explain. “They don’t know what gold is. They’ve never seen it.”
“What kind of worthless being has never seen gold?” he groans. “It’s the only thing of any value in the universe! And they haven’t evenseenit?!”
“They’re probably doing their best,” I say as soothingly as I can when my voice trembles this bad. “Maybe they will suddenly bring you real gold by pure chance.”
