“I’ve got something to numb the pain and some flowers that should stave off any infection,” Lynette said, looking down at the leather pouches in her hands. “I don’t know if human medicine is going to work on a dragon, but it’s the best I’ve got. And there’s some water to mash it into a paste,” she said, pointing to the metal bucket her friend had brought along.
“Thank you,” Koradan said to the second woman. “May I ask your name?” Manners would only get them so far, but it didn’t hurt to try to appear amiable.
“Um… yeah, um… no… Um…” the woman said, her eyes darting left and right like she was looking for an escape route.
“This is Morgan,” Lynette said, sweeping right past her friend’s apprehension. “She’s a very good friend of mine.” Translation:harm her and face my wrath. So far, this woman was proving to be every bit as tempestuous as a salas woman would have been, and Koradan was privately impressed. He hadn’t known what to expect of human women. All he really knew was that every single warrior at the Gate of Chalandros was a male, and from that bland fact, he’d made a number of assumptions. Either human women were not physically strong enough to fight, or they were forbidden from fighting by authoritative men. From the looks of her, there was nothing physically weak about Lynette. She stood just shy of six feet tall and had the lean, muscular build of someone used to working outdoors. He could well imagine her hauling wheelbarrows of wood for their fires, or digging furrows to plant vegetables in the field.
And there was also nothing meek or submissive about her. From their five minute conversation, he already couldn’t imagine her allowing a man to tell her what to do all the time.
“So, um… we’re all set, then?” Lynette held up the pouches of herbs again.
“Oh gods, you’re braver than me,” Morgan muttered. “I wouldn’t go within twenty metres of one of those things.”
Lynette blinked at her in surprise. “Neither would I. I’m not going near them. I’m just giving Koradan some herbs.”
“But you’re a nurse,” Morgan pointed out. “I just assumed you’d be treating the wound yourself. That’s what you do whenever one of the horses or goats gets injured.”
Koradan’s eyes widened in surprise at the news. A nurse? Lynette’s mouth fell open, and her eyes met Koradan’s in a panic. “No, I… um…”
“You’re a nurse?” he repeated, schooling his features to try and appear calm, keeping his sudden burst of excitement to himself. “Then you’d be able to treat Bnaa yourself? That would be wonderful.”
“Who? What? No!” Lynette said. “I never said I was going anywhere near your damn dragon. It could bite me in half as soon as look at me!”
“Please,” Koradan said, making an effort to look crestfallen. Disappointed and just a little helpless. If human women were anything like salas women, they were pushovers when it came to anything small or injured. He just needed to tug on Lynette’s heartstrings a little more, to get her to feel a bit of sympathy for their ‘fearsome dragons’. “He won’t hurt you. He’s completely tame.”
A little way back, Ashd snorted. Koradan glanced back, and he saw Ashd lift his lip, revealing a row of sharp teeth. “Completely tame,” Koradan repeated, glaring at the vreki, knowing the description was an insult to the vreki’s intelligence.I’m sorry, he said, via their mental bond.Please, play along. She’s terrified of you. I’m just trying to make her feel better.
Ashd grumbled a fraction more, but he lowered his lip and settled back onto his elbows.
“Oh yeah, that’s convincing,” Lynette said, rolling her eyes.
Koradan sighed. “They can be a little opinionated. But Bnaa knows what you’d be doing is for his own good. I promise, he’s not going to hurt you. And I’d guess you have far more experience with this sort of thing than we do.”
“Who normally patches them up when they’re injured?” Lynette asked, and Koradan was heartened to see that she was thinking beyond their immediate situation. It was the first step in getting her to see him and his men as people, rather than just a threat.
“Mages,” Koradan said. “They use magic. I’ve never had to bandage a vreki’s wound in my life.” The statement was a blatant lie. He’d bandaged plenty of wounds, both salas and vreki, while they were out patrolling the city. Once they got back to the palace, though, it was true that the Stone King kept a number of mages on hand to heal any injuries for his soldiers.
“A vreki?” Lynette asked, slightly mispronouncing the word. “What’s that?”
“A dragon, I mean,” Koradan said. “In our world, they’re not actually called dragons. We call them vreki.”
“And what did you call the injured one specifically? Was that his name?”
“Bnaa,” Koradan said. “It’s as close as I can get to pronouncing his name. Vreki language is very different from ours.”
Lynette’s eyebrows twisted in a look of consternation. “They have language?”
“Hey, Bnaa,” Koradan called, getting the vreki’s attention. Bnaa sat up, his reptilian eyes bright in the lamp light. “Can you say your name for Lynette?”
Bnaa shook himself a little, and Koradan rolled his eyes. Smug bastard. The slightest chance for a bit of attention and he was lapping it up. Bnaa made a popping sound with his tongue, then followed it up with a guttural moan.
Lynette just stared at the vreki, then glanced back at Koradan in confusion. “That was his name,” Koradan explained. “Bnaa, can you do that again?”
Bnaa did so, and a moment later, comprehension dawned on Lynette’s face. “Oh, I see,” she said slowly. “That’s, um… not what I was expecting.”
“So what do you think?” Koradan pressed her, knowing he might be pushing too hard. “Can you take a look at his wound?”
Lynette glanced at Morgan. The younger woman looked back with a pleading expression. Lynette looked far from happy about the decision, but eventually she nodded.
