The next egg, still rocking, caught their gaze as Pryd handed the little one to Slath, and Galatan and the others. Even Lyss got to hold her before Ghreid did. The little girl yawned and flopped over his shoulder before giving a defeated breath, total relaxation claiming her.
Bessam didn’t hatch in a peek and spread as Naxima had. He came into the world intentionally, lashing from his egg in a sprawl and yowl of joy. Lapryda, for his part, snickered and clapped his hands. “Yessssss!”
Collective groans rolled between the brothers.
“Another fucking vanity dragon,” Falustus groaned as the little one preened, his tiny golden horns and claws almost like jewelry on his amethyst scales.
He stretched his body and slid over to his fathers, giving them equal parts affection as if his mere presence was a reward. And from there, he wound his way around Galatan and Slath before holding his little claws up and standing on weak back legs for, as they all could have guessed, Lapryda.
“Are we sure Rath is the father? Both of them are little preening tots.” Galatan laughed gloriously, and Rath joined him.
“I’m very certain, Brothers. I was there for the entire conception.” Rath puffed with his own pride as Asha smacked his arm.
“I was there, too and I can attest that Pryd must have been there in spirit, if this is the case.” Rath leaned over to kiss his mate, and they watched their hatchlings fawn over chosen uncles with delight.
“Oooh, voyeur,” Falustus cooed before wafting his hand a bit, letting a folding fan unfurl in his grasp. Where he hid the thing, Ghreid wasn’t certain because he had no pockets in his trousers that were nearly painted on, and his top was barely sleeves and enough fabric to cover his collarbones, letting his prominent nipples show freely.
Galatan, for his part, waltzed over to steal the little girl from Ghreid, her already-snoozing form jostling with a lazy blink. “Niece! I will head to the kitchens where we’ll prepare your first feast!”
“And Ghreid’s going-away party,” Draenvir said from a corner, eying Ghreid with a longing expression, as if he wished he were in his place. How Ghreid wished so, too, but he’d felt a calling of late that made him want to go more and more.
“Are you all packed?” Rath eyed Ghreid.
He nodded, golden locks spilling over his shoulders. He reached his hand out, all warm tanned skin, more sun kissed than his father’s richer tones, tucking the strands away with dark claws, gold reflected in their surfaces.
Naxima made her way back to his arms as the celebration commenced, and they lazed about, napping with their newly whelped niblings while not saying the goodbyes that the celebration would entail.
Come morning, Ghreid would fly.
Chapter Two
Varis
It’d been two winters since that day. Varis stared up at a midnight-dark sky, bathing in moonlight and twinkling diamonds, a hoard in the sky that belonged to him alone. The gentle rocking of the sea beneath him did more to wake him than lull him, as days were hot and bothersome. Too much of a chance to be seen.
Varis stretched out from his place among scratchy canvas looped among leaning masts, ready to do his nightly fishing. A few of the pink-bellied ones with silver and black scales would sate him well for the night, he decided.
In the distance, a bright light from a lighthouse beckoned him. A siren-like beacon begging him to come to shore. To die like all the others had.
Still, he stared at it, something different about it that night. Something beautiful in the light. The same thing he’d stared at for two years.
War was shit at the best of times. And this was not the best of times.
Varis grabbed his harpoon and scooted to the edge of the fore top yard, the open arms of the first mast that had once held the billowing sail aloft. He stood and stretched, saltwater spraying off the bow as the surf crashed against the forward side and the rocks it had grounded upon so long ago. He breathed deeply, tasting the air before staring at the churning waters below. Not wanting to wait any longer for a meal, he dove and sank deep into the tide.
Pushing through the dark waters, starlight and the moon’s glow lit the world beneath the tide with spectral ripples. A place where his eyes could see better than others, work that made himespecially adept at working the night on the ship, back when it still sailed. Back when the crew was still there.
Lost in the darkness, he scouted on the seafloor, waiting for his chosen target: delicious fish. His mind replayed his journey, across the saltwater stills, the doldrums of Elide, and into the kingdom of Rammolia, their last stop before Monsmount. A war-torn port they never got to visit.
They came upon the port in a frenzy of war, fire rising from the horizon, smoke rolling into the sky. The air was rank and thick with excrement of all varieties. Hundreds of ships lay in wait a mile from shore; the jolt and crash of hulls second only to the fetid stench of still waters as waste poured overboard.
In those days, making port cost ten gold, and taxes were assessed based on the cargo carried. But when the war had risen to its peak, making port cost seven-hundred gold, a fat bribe to two officials, and even then, the cargo might be seized to give to the armies and seamen conscripted into a war for a nation they wanted no part of.
Not wanting to pay the price or forfeit their cargo or men, the ships dropped anchor just beyond the line of neutral waters and lay in wait for the siege to ebb, but it never did. Ships came and went, the line of them fattening then moving on, taking a risk to the next port with nothing but losses, but they had cargo that couldn’t be sold elsewhere. Sure, they had barrels of rum, casks of cheeses and exotic silks woven from the cocoons of moths who fed only on wine grapes and thimblefuls of fire whisky. Their rich royal colors were only allowed to be worn by Monsmontian royalty, and to even be in possession of them was grounds for beheading.
Varis had joined the trade four years ago, fleeing his destiny in the dead of night. His light-umber skin bore white patches along his neck and shoulders that marked him as a cursed child,to be given as sacrifice to the temple of Alim for their god, so his ashes would rise to the heavens and appease them.
Once he discovered his fate, he’d boarded a ship that night, taken a single silver as his conscription fee, and escaped a world where half the ship he joined with assumed he’d put some girl in the family’s way. Despite his protest otherwise, and admission that he was fleeing for search of love, as he was a flower child, nobody believed him. Even after bedding him, they didn’t believe him. He was just a pretty boy who liked men—who probably also put a girl in a vulnerable place.
