To make sure I won’t be dependent on him once he has to leave, probably.
But even in that he is showing me his care.
Zan directs me to where we apparently keep plates and silverware and cups, and we set a table with toast and scrambled eggs and a bowl full of blackberries and extra butter, just for me.
It’s simpler, but I decide I like this even better than yesterday’s sandwich.
After breakfast Zan shows me how to wash a dish carefully, and then makes me fall over laughing when he then cleans more with exaggerated super immortal dragon speed.
We go to unpack his bag. Zan apparently didn’t finish last night as I expected, because he wanted me to know where things were.
("You can always change it later—”
“It’s your house, too,” I practically growled. “And between the two of us you actually know how a human house works.”
Supremely ironic, given that he’s a dragon, but true nonetheless.)
And once that’s done, he takes me out to the ice house to show me where it is and what food we have inside.
An ice house, apparently, is a small building used to store ice throughout the year. During the winter, ice and snow are taken to the ice house and packed with insulation so that they will stay cold for months. Then other foods can be stored there to keep them chilled, too, sotheywill last longer, because otherwise apparently many foods quickly rot and are no longer edible. That’s a thing I knew in theory, but have never personally had to contend with.
Butter in its special crock doesn’t go bad quickly, nor sugar in its jar, Zan assures me, but milk is another matter.
The ice house in this case is made of stone in a sort of dome shape, but tall enough that we can walk into it—and this one is bigger than average, because it was once used to feed the entire temple.
“Fortunately this ice house always has enough snow, since Nomi can come up and fill it every year just from what’s on the mountain,” Zan explains. “But she can’t supply the town with it without jeopardizing the safety of the sanctuary. It’s why she had some extra ice cream, though—she had a method of getting extra ice without paying for it.”
“We needextraice to make ice cream now though, don’t we?” I ask. “Now that the snow around here has melted, what’s here has to last until next winter, right? Am I understanding correctly?”
“Yes. We could replenish the ice from another source—”
“But our sources are other people in Crystal Hollow, who are all strangers to me that would have to for some reason be willing to risk their food security to help satisfy my sweet tooth, or outside the island, which might invite questions about why the sudden need and where the money is coming from.”
Zan looks at me thoughtfully as he nods—surprised again by the speed I can put things together, possibly.
“There is another option,” he says slowly.
He heads for the exit of the ice house, and I follow him curiously.
When he stops in the field and looks at me expectantly, I admit it takes me a minute to catch up, which is especially annoying given my prior thoughts.
In my defense, it’s hard to see the snow-capped mountain when you’reonthe mountain.
Zan is suggesting we go get the ice ourselves.
And given how tall that peak is...
I’m pretty sure he’s suggestingflyingto get to the ice.
I’m not entirely sure he’s actually suggesting flying with me, but the idea is so exhilarating that it takes a second for my starry eyes to calm down and my brain to start thinking again.
“Won’t you have to hibernate if you shift, though?” I ask.
“I’ll be fine.”
That’s not a no, but it’s also not a real answer. “Look, your secrets are your own, I respect that, but I know enough about dragons to know you can’t possibly transform again this soon without repercussions. Don’t put yourself in a vulnerable position because I want ice cream!”
“Then also respect that I know my own limits and can make my own decisions for whatever reasons I want,” Zan retorts. “And that I know more about what influences our transformation than you do.”
