Trying to be quiet, I remove the branches from the opening and crawl out.
He’s sitting with his back to me, looking like he’s tending a fire. His golden scales shine under the black skin.
“Vyrathion!” I exclaim as relief explodes in my chest. “You’re back!”
He turns and sends me a sour glance. “So it appears.”
I run over. “I thought you’d left me for good!”
He turns back to the fire. “That can still happen. I’m onto your spells now.” He’s got a number of slices of meat beside him that he clumsily tries to thread onto small twigs.
“You know, you could have told me you’d be back. I was worried!”
“Dragons never announce what they will do. I didn’t know I’d be back. Sit down and be more demure.”
“Where did you find the meat?”
He picks up one slice and looks at it with disgust. “The iron tribe.”
“They gave it to you?”
“In a sense. They were going to eat it, so I took it while I passed through their village. There was a fire as well.”
The fire is just one big log with one end burning merrily. I’ve never seen Praxigor make fire. “Did you… did you take their fire, too?”
“It seemed the best way. I assume eating raw meat is too uncivilized, even for you. Although it’s hard to believe that thereisany such lower boundary.”
I plop down, overwhelmed. “You carried the actual fire all the way here? How did you get it across the river?”
“I made a bridge. And before you start asking, no, it’s not something a dragon should ever do.”
I remember the sound of the tree falling in the night, so I stand up and look around. And sure enough, there’s a giant tree lying across the river, with the roots on the other bank. It’s as thick as I am tall. “That’s a big tree!”
“Big, but already leaning because of the wide river. I helped it lean all the way over. Oh, this is silly!” He tosses a twig into the undergrowth, immediately followed by the slice of meat.
“May I?” I ask. “You never prepare food, but I do it a lot.”
“Help yourself,” he growls and stands up. “I assume the tribe followed me to retrieve their fire. Their village is disgustingly, shamefully short of gold. Can you believe it? They’ll happily spend their lives hammering pretty patterns into worthless iron, but they don’t have a smidgen of gold! Not a scrap! It’s enough to make one furious.” He strides off towards the tree, then turns. “Oh, and since you need advance warning: It’s not out of the question that I’ll be back. Don’t be shocked.”
“Smartass,” I mutter as I easily thread the slices onto long twigs and place them over the fire. But I am relieved and happy that he returned. My life would have looked pretty grim if he hadn’t.
“It’s not like it’s a Hallmark movie as it is,” I mutter. But for now, I’ll enjoy the relief. If there’s something planet Xren teaches you, it’s to enjoy every little happy moment because you can bet it’s cooking up something terrible to unleash on you pretty soon.
Vyrathion crosses the river, simply walking along the tree trunk as if it was an empty sidewalk.
“He’s so good,” I tell Clyde, who’s holding out a leaf. “And then he’s also so crazy. What do you think?ShouldI have thrown myself at him last night? Yes, right? I did the right thing? What I like about you, Clyde, is that you always agree with me.”
I think about it. Vyrathion walked into the muddy river, came up on the other side, walked to the iron tribe, casually strolled into their village and stole their dinner and their fire, came back here, pulled a tree up by its roots to get to me, placed the fire outside the hut and then tried his damndest to fry the meat on skewers.
That’s not very dragon-like. At least not as he has made me understand dragons. And yet, I don’t think he has any ulterior motives. He’s too direct, too confident, too above it all.
“Clyde, go over to the other side and see if you can find your friends. Check if they have gold.” I try to picture what I want him to do in my mind, including him coming back with gold. I spend some time imagining nuggets and coins and gold dust, which is a challenge, because I haven’t seen a lot of it in my life.
Finally he scurries off, waddles across the river on the tree trunk and vanishes into the undergrowth. He shouldn’t have far to go - there’s a lot of Plood in the jungle.
I munch on fried mystery meat, which is actually not that bad. The world starts to look brighter and less deadly, which I’m fully aware is an illusion.
The rain has stopped completely and the river has sunk a great deal, so I’m not that worried about the island collapsing anymore.
