“I don’t usually dream about being a dragon,” Morgan says, juice running down her chin. “Just now I was back on Earth, with my friend and grandmother, searching a house that had just become haunted. But it wasn’t - it was just a Navy crew having an exercise in the kitchen. Their slingshots sounded like ghosts. Of course I’d known that all along.”
I frown at her. “Did you enchant yourself again? You speak as if you’re still unconscious.”
“No, no,” she assures me. “I’m fine. I’m always this disconnected in the morning. Thanks for the breakfast. It’s delicious.”
“Someonehas to feed you,” I growl. “And I suppose it has to be me, if I ever expect you to do anything useful for me.”
“Is that why?” she asks, looking at me with eyes that are clear and innocent. “Is that the only reason?”
“Don’t inquire into the reasons of dragons,” I warn her, having wondered the same thing myself. “Nothing good comes from that.”
For a while I watch Morgan sit in the morning sun, eating fruit and talking nonsense.
I find the sound oddly pleasant.
Then I realize I have been listening rather than merely tolerating it.
And I don’t mind that as much as I should.
She suddenly stops chewing and looks up. “Do you feel anything? Like a sudden terror?”
“There’s nothing on this planet to make me feel that-” I look up, too. There is the only thing that could be a danger to me - another dragon. And this is a full dragon soaring lazily above, a shadow against the sky.
“I think it’s Praxigor,” Morgan whispers as she draws closer to me.
Of course. Praxigor the dragon from Morgan’s tribe. In his full dragon form. And me in this pitiful body!
“Perhaps he’s coming from his hoard, or going to it,” I speculate.
But no. He turns and then spirals slower, floating on his mighty wings. He knows we’re here.
“He’s here to kill me,” I realize. “And it will be an easy kill. I recommend you stay at a distance. He may use the flame.”
But Morgan takes my hand and stays where she is. “I don’t think that will happen.”
Praxigor comes zooming along the river, so fast and low there’s a wake on the surface. As he approaches, he beats his wings once and stops to hover right above us.
Ah. You’re Morgan, yes?He speaks right into our minds in the way of full dragons. How I envy him that powerful form!
“That’s right,” Morgan replies. “And you’re Praxigor, Astrid’s husband.”
I chuckle in delight at her daring, naming a dragon not by himself or his reputation, but by his wife. As an insult, it’s near impossible to take offence at.
Correct. She asked me to find you and see that you’re alive. You appear to be. Is this dragon in his weakest form being a nuisance to you?
“You can tell her I’m fine,” Morgan says. “And that Vyrathion is a friend and not to be feared.”
A dragon not to be feared,Praxigor ponders.Curious. But yes, I see what you mean. He is a pitiful sort of dragon.
Fury rises in me. “I will steal your hoard, Praxigor the Poor!”
He laughs.I think you’ll find that unexpectedly hard. She loves me, you see.He beats his wings again, sending a hard wind over us as he soars into the air.
“Tell Astrid there may be other Earth girls in the jungle!” Morgan yells up to him as the wind blows her hair behind her.
Praxigor rises fast, turns while the sun glints off his scales and then, with a flick of his flowing tail, disappears out of sight.
Envy twists through me. That is what a dragon should be. Vast. Powerful. Untouchable. Praxigor crossed half the jungle in moments, spoke mind-to-mind across the sky and looked down on the world as dragons were meant to.
