She bites into another fruit. “Oh, I didn’t,” she says cheerfully. “But if there was more… well, never mind. I mean, don’t go and get more from that tribe. That’s not what I mean. They nearly came over on this island. Actually, just stay here. We’ll stay here. Sure you don’t want one?” She puts the rest of the fruit into her mouth.
I have trouble following her thinking, and I suspect there’s not much to follow. I look around the grove of trees. “There’s no gold here. There’s no meat to be had. We will now get back to the jungle and continue my search for gold.”
“There’s no bridge,” Morgan points out. “You pushed it into the river. And the moment we get into the jungle, you know those Plood are going to swarm you with leaves and gravel.”
“I’d forgotten about those,” I growl. “If only they’d leave me alone!”
To my considerable dismay, I find that I would like to spend more time on this silly little heap of mud that Morgan calls an island. While there’s no gold, I find myself doing strange things like climbing trees and harvesting food for a female of a lesser species. And I can’t deny that the experience in that tree was new and remarkably wonderful.
Perhaps I can delay my absolutely vital search for gold for another night. I have been on Xren for years now, steadily weakening, so one night of interesting pleasure should be an acceptable delay. Perhaps I need it. Perhaps I need one more night without the desperate search.
One part of me knows this is insane, but I silence that part with no great problem.
“Let us walk along the water,” I decide. I walk ahead, but then Morgan takes hold of my hand.
“Maybe like this?” she says and curls my hand around hers. It’s cool and ridiculously small, and it makes me feel like a giant.
“And?” I ask, puzzled. She didn’t give me anything.
“And then we walk,” she chirps and drags me along the bank. “See how nice this is?”
“It’s a good way to occupy someone’s sword hand,” I ponder. “So that he can be attacked from that side. But of course, dragons don’t use weapons. It’s useless for that.”
“What if,” Morgan says, frowning as if deep in thought, “someone did this, and it wasn’t because they wanted you dead? It was because they just wanted to be close to you because they like you?”
Words fail me. “Ah, but… now… Because they…likea dragon? Have any more confused words ever been uttered?”
“I don’t know,” Morgan says and swings my hand back and forth as we walk. “Maybe I’m confused. Actually, I definitely am. But I still like you enough to want to hold your hand.”
“Then I can only sympathize. That is to say, if I were capable of such things.”
She looks up at me. “Are you saying that you don’t like me? You don’t like me holding your hand?”
“This is your sorcery again,” I grumble. “Making me admit to being under your spell. No, I am not violently opposed to this hand thing. If I were, you’d know.”
“Not violently opposed!” Morgan chirps, swinging our hands forwards and backwards between us. “I’ve never been more flattered. Oh, look! Gold!”
I stiffen and look where she’s pointing. “Where do you see–”
“No, sorry,” Morgan says and kicks at something by the bank so it flutters into the river. “It looks just like gold leaf. See? It does, right?”
The leaf drifts calmly down the stream and is clearly just a regular leaf from a tree.
“I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t get my hopes up,” I growl as my jaws clench. “Certainly I forbid you from using any wordplay that concerns precious metals in any way. Gold leaf is fine gold hammered immensely thin, and it doesn’t grow on trees.”
“Can you be sure?” Morgan asks. “What if there are actual gold trees all over the jungle and you don’t know because you never look up?”
I frown as I look down on her face. “What was in those fruits`? A potion gone wrong? Did you enchant yourself by mistake?”
“Oh, don’t be so serious,” she says. “It was just a joke. Actually, those fruits were probably a little bit fermented. I might be just a tiny bit drunk. A tiiiiny bit. Or maybe I’m just happy. What are you looking at?”
“I try not to look at anything.” I wanted to walk along the bank to try to spot the monster and then maybe give it a knock, so that it won’t disturb us for a while. But it’s nowhere in sight.
“Oh, there’s Clyde!” Morgan exclaims. “Hey! You’re on the wrong side, Clyde. But it’s fine. Just wait there for a while. Actually, it might be a long while. I don’t know.”
Indeed the misshaped Plood is standing on the opposite bank, pondering the gouges in the mud from the tree I pushed in. And there are many others of his kind around him.
“So many of them,” I sigh. “Keep them off this island at all cost. We appear to be somewhat safe from them here.”
