Kingdom of Two Skies (open)

[Lisenet]

Miora
nine years old
human
message-runner

I didn't always know the difference between the sky and a sea. After a while they both looked just the same. When one changed color so did the other, or at least from my point of view they did. I was trapped on the very hem of them both, like the water in a giant's mouth, where he savored it before he swallowed it all away.

I hoped that I wouldn't be swallowed. I wouldn't be shocked if I was, but drowning sounded like one of the worst ways to die. At the moment I felt torn between drowning and starvation--both wanted me, but neither one wanted me yet, so I lay curled in the bottom of the tiny boat I'd been set adrift in. No oars or rudders. If I wanted to go somewhere in particular I'd have to use my hands. But I couldn't see anything but the giant blue that was sometimes black.

At the moment starvation was hovering closer. Although I hadn't been hungry in a while. Just very thirsty. My stomach felt dried up and small. It felt like it was pulling away from the insides of its skin, it was so small. My throat too.

But at least the storm had passed. The wave that overturned my boat left me lying on the underside of the bench seat for a forever or two before another wave turned me over right-ways again.

One of my skies nudged me sideways, rocking my tiny boat. My skin ached from being wet, cold, and salty for however long I'd been gone. My hair had gone from brown to rough white somehow. My blue dress too. My skin glittered. The shore had slipped away forevers ago. But maybe another one would appear. Or a cloud would reach down and save me.

[Riley]

Riley and Taesi were walking on the beach, they'd been partnered for several weeks now, and the jumps she took in both size and intellect astounded him. "Riley, look there's something out there." The Rider looked out at the sea, trying to find what his dragon was talking about. "I don't see anything Taesi, show me." The dragon nudged Riley's elbow with her head, this highest point on his body she could reach, and then sent him the image. Riley saw it now, through Taesi's eyes. "Yeah, it looks like a boat.. I think." Riley stretched out with his mind, searching for the boat, and the light of consciousness inside it.

Riley's eyes burst open and he looked down at Taesi, "Go, get that boat and bring it back here now." The dragon jumped into the air, flying out to the boat as fast as she could. Diving under the water she started swimming, pushing the boat along. Now at least she understood why her Rider had sounded so urgent, there was someone in the boat. However she was still young, this was a lot for her still, if only she was just a little older, a little bigger. She let out a roar and gave the boat one last push, before the violet dragon burst from the water again and flew back to her Rider. "It will be here soon." Riley smiled and scratched Taesi's head softly, letting her know he appreciated her hard work.

Riley took off his surcoat and removed his elven sword, hanging them both on Taesi, "Sorry for making you hold these, but stay here and rest." He felt a faint sense of annoyment from Taesi about being used as a coat rack, but understood his intentions. Riley started wading out into the water, grumbling a few choice words in the ancient language about cold water. Soon enough Taesi's work combined with the tide brought the boat to him, which he continued to guide to dry land. Pulling the boat up onto the shore, he grunted with the effort before turning to the inside of the boat.

"Hello? My name's Riley I'm here to help you." He spoke softly, holding his hand out inside the boat. "You can trust me little one, I'm a new Dragon Rider." Riley twisted his hand for her slightly, letting her see the Gedwey Ignasia. His eyes took in everything they could about the small girl in the boat, she looked like she'd been out in that water for far too long. "Would you like some water? And food? And.. dry clothes?" He asked, Taesi coming up next to him, peering over the edge of the boat and inside it. "Is she well Riley? Riley glanced at the violet dragon for a split second, "She will be soon, she needs some water and food though. And some dry clothes would probably help her too."

[Lisenet]

The tiny boat—a skiff really—rocked again when some odd force shoved it forward. Not the wind, or she would have felt it. Not the water either. But if it was a sea creature pushing her back to his lair to eat her, at least she would probably die quickly. Better than going to either drowning or starvation. The pushing stopped after a while, she drifted, then the movement turned to tugging. Abruptly the sound of gravel and sand scraping against the bottom of the boat tore against Miora’s salt-crusted ears and she eased her hands over them, face screwing up. That was a dry sound, though. Didn’t the boat need dirt to make that sound?

A shadow larger than a seabird passed through the light always aching at Miora’s eyelids and she cracked them open to reveal a young man leaning over the side of the skiff. He held a hand down and she let go of her ears to listen to him. His palm glowed silver and her eyes widened. She wanted to flinch at the sight of it but that would take too much effort. His words sounded so strange to her after days of hearing only water. Thin and strung-out like the wreckage of a broken ship. She had to wait a moment and piece them back together in her head before she understood. ”Would you like some water? And food?....”

Miora blinked up at him. Water. Yes, she wanted water, but the fresh kind, not this awful salty stuff. But when she opened her parched lips to reply that wasn’t what she said. ”You’re no sea creature,” she mumbled instead. A rich purple head poked itself over the rail and she blinked again. ”Maybe you are.”

Rolling over with a groan, the girl rose to her scraped knees and peered over the rail at the ground. It actually was ground, gray and light brown mostly. Lifting her head she saw that they were on a stretch of curved beach, the ocean muttering behind her, green land-plants before her. Deciding halfway that this must be actual land and not a dream, she stood stiffly and lowered one foot over the railing until her toes brushed against the stones of the beach. They were dry, so this was most likely a real place. She rested her weight more firmly on the foot and tentatively left the boat, careful not to let any of the slinking waves touch her. She’d had plenty enough of those.

After putting both feet on the ground Miora let go of the boat and promptly crumbled to sit against it. She hadn’t stood up….since the night the baker had tossed her off his stoop, told her to find somewhere else to sleep. This ragged boat shoddily tied had been the best she could do. After that she’d been afraid to rise any higher than her knees, and Miora had always hated kneeling. Her thoughts and words not cooperating very well, she asked suddenly, ”Did you say water? Something about some….something?” She frowned. Her words didn’t seem to be working right.

She looked sideways, distracted again, uncharacteristic for her. ”Not a sea creature,” she said to the purple creature next to her. ”You got the wrong feet.” She stuck out one of her own bare feet, marked with scrapes and splinters from the rough wood of the boat. ”Me too.” She threw her head back. ”Who’re you?”

[Riley]

Riley watched the younger girl as she started gaining her bearings, and started rambling about a sea creature. "No, no we're not sea creatures. I'm a human like you, and this violet one next to me is Taesi, she's my dragon." He moved to stop her as she started getting up, Taesi stopped him with a poke from her mind. "Let her try on her own, let's see what she can do." Riley reluctantly agreed with the dragon, letting the girl try everything on her own first. "She seems tough, and like she likes to do things on her own." The dragon looked down at her feet after the little girl mentioned them, then looked back up at her and spoke to her this time. "I am not a creature of the sea, 'I' am a dragon."

Riley knelt down by her, nodding a few times, "I'm Riley, a Dragon Rider. Yeah, I said something about water, would you like to get some food and water?" He offered, pulling his belt back, the sword hanging neatly from his left hip. He ripped his surcoat into a few pieces, then grabbed the biggest piece and held it open for her. "Here, you look cold this will help warm you up." Riley almost wished his training with magic had progressed a little farther, so he could warm her with magic, however he didn't want to risk hurting her on accident. So, a torn brand new surcoat used as a towel was the next best thing. At least for the moment, until he got her to tent city and near a cooking fire.

Riley didn't wait for an answer, instead of letting her get up, he scooped her up in the piece of surcoat, wrapping it around her and picking her up. "What's your name?" He asked, his voice still soft but not a voice he would use when speaking to a child. Instead Riley had chosen to speak to her as more of an equal, not wanting to insult her or treat her like a child. He sensed that she would take offense to that, best to keep her in a good mood for now, so he could get her taken care of. Taesi followed as Riley started walking, holding the little girl in his arms and looking up toward tent city. "You managed to drift all the way to Vroengard, the new home of the Riders."

[Lisenet]

Miora had never met a dragon before, only heard of them. She and many other of the street-muffins thought they were only half-real. But everything felt half-real for the moment. She suspected there was a lull between what he said and what she said in reply, and her thoughts didn’t seem to want to align themselves with her mouth. ”She sounds like a flower.” Her name did. But for some reason she couldn’t think of the way to say that. The dragon—Taesi—glanced down at her feet and back up when Miora said they were unsuitable to be making them sea creatures, then replied herself.

Miora supposed that she was too tired and addled-feeling to be surprised, because all she said was ”I bet you hate people assuming you can’t talk. I do.” Riley. A familiar-sounding name. The Riders’ names she’d heard before had all been foreign and utterly unpronounceable. Then, all the Riders before had been elves. If Riley was human—and he looked human so far—then she was glad to be found by one of the normal ones. She didn’t think she’d ever met an elf, but she doubted she would care to, with the stories she’d heard of them.

Riley offered her a swath of dark, thick cloth and she gazed blankly at it a moment before he helped her stand and wound her up in it. The breeze ached a little less then. ”Water?” she asked, wondering if it was soon in the coming. He’d just said something about it again but she hadn’t been listening…. Her thoughts ran in all directions like scattered chickens and she was the blind man trying to pick them all up.

The young Rider lifted her then, and Miora absently thought it was good for him she was so tired. Normally she didn’t like being handled at all by strangers. She didn’t trust them. Had no reason to. They might toss her off the docks just because they knew she couldn’t swim and who would care if a whore’s brat drowned? It wasn’t as if she had anyone to look after her but her own self. She was the only person who would miss her own life.

”Sorry,” she mumbled then, thinking that she must be getting in his way by showing up like this. ”Miora,” she said to his next question, only catching it because she’d been speaking herself. Her forehead bobbed against her shoulder as she tried to hold it up, and her crusted eyelids tapped shut, lashes tangling as she tried to keep them open. She was losing that fight as his words threaded through to her. ”You managed to drift all the way to Vroengard….” Vroengard. Home of men and women and elves and dragons. She would get trampled or eaten for sure.

When Miora next opened her eyes she was in another place she didn’t recognize.

[Riley]

Riley blinked at the little girl, the way she was talking, it seemed like she was confused. She was heavily dehydrated, his only assumption here was that the lack of water was messing with her mind. "Yes, water. Let's go and get you that water." He started thinking back over his lessons, she would need to drink the water slowly. "Miora? Well that's a very pretty name." He looked down at her then, noticing that she had passed out. He reached out with his mind, touching hers enough to know that she was still alive. The thrum of her thoughts and the light of her life still there. They were faded, and weak, but she was still alive. "Is she common of all hatchling humans? Riley couldn't help but chuckle. "No, no she's not common at all among young humans."

Riley carried Miora to his tent, calling for a healer and a tailor as he walked passed. When inside his tent, he laid Miora down on his cot, letting the healer look at her. Then he and the tailor worked together to get some new clothes together for her, as Riley brought the bundle back to his tent, he stopped and gathered food and water. The healer was leaving his tent as he was entering it, "She will be fine after rest and water, make sure she drinks it slow." Riley nodded and thanked the man, entering the tent to see Miora still asleep in his cot. Smiling, he set the packages down and went to his desk, Taesi sitting down by Miora and watching over her as she slept.

"Riley, she's waking up." Riley left the scroll he had been reading sitting on the desk, grabbing one of the waterskins as he went to kneel by Miora. "Hey, there sleepy head. Here's some water, drink it slow." He unstoppered the water before holding it up to Miora's lips, letting her drink her fill. When she was done, Riley stoppered it again, then set it by her. "Here, I've got some food for you too, and more water. And some new clothes." He set them all on the cot in front of her, he thought about it for a few moments, then looked up at her and smiled. "If you'd like, you can stay here for a while, I'll look after you. If you'll let me anyway."

[Lisenet]

The way the light slid through the canvas walls of the tent tinted everything a little bit yellow, like rushlights did. Merchants got tallow candles, lords got wax, and the poor got grass. Blinking again—salt kept falling into her eyes—she sat up and scrubbed at her face with both hands. Taesi the purple dragon was sitting next to the cot she’d been deposited on and watching her owlishly, while her human turned away from the desk and knelt next to the cot. Miora was comforted by how he didn’t just deign to tower over her; for a nine-year-old she was a mite on the wispy side. He held out an open flask and she grabbed at it gladly. Drink it slowly, what for? You didn’t tell healers to fix people slow, why let water go slowly too? She drank half of it before her belly tightened possessively around it, so she let the flask drop. Riley set it next to her and she brought it back into her lap, wrapping her arms around it so the waves wouldn’t take it away like they’d taken the scrap of bread she’d fallen asleep holding.

Miora bounced slightly on the cot, her befuddlement ebbing just slightly with the appearance of the water, and ran her hand over the soft sheets. The best she’d ever gotten as far as bedding was hay, discarded rags or other mumper-children. Riley set a platter on the bed next to her and her eyes widened, going back and forth between the food and its provider. All of that for her? Usually she only got a handful at a time. Slowly dragging the platter into her lap too she poked curiously at a strawberry, wondering if she’d been wrong and the discovery of land had been a dream and therefore so was this. Stuffing the strawberry whole in her mouth—the tart-sweet taste of it hurt in comparison with the air and salt that had been her only fare the entire time she drifted—she poked next at a lump of brown stuff. ”Is that meat?” she asked incredulously. She’d hardly ever seen the stuff cooked before, and the vendors selling it knew better than to let her near enough to grab any of it as they knew she would. Her mouth watered at the very thought of finally trying some and she swallowed. She tore off a corner of the roll and packed it into her mouth after the strawberry. Eyeing the lump of yet-unidentifiable clothes she mumbled, mouth full, ”No one’s ever given me anything but smacks or notes before.” Her dress would be just fine after a wash though, as would her hair and the rest of her salty self. She wondered if there was a stream nearby.

”If you’d like, you can stay here for a while….”

At this Miora looked up, having to remind herself to swallow her wad of food before she spoke so he’d understand her. Her stomach gurgled and she scowled down at it. ”Stay put, you.” Returning her attention to the Rider she said, ”What choice’ve I got? Of a choice between you and the waves I’d as soon take you. You’ve got food.” She peeled off an edge of the browned meat, looked at it curiously a moment, then poked it into her mouth and chewed. It was quite good.

[Riley]

Riley took note of the fact that she held onto the water, he didn't blame her at all. If he had been in her situation, he would have found the first river he could, and immediately dunked his head into it and drank it all. Though logically he knew it was far better to drink it slow so you didn't get sick. Riley then watched her look between him and the food, then finally start eating. Then she mentioned no one giving her anything but smacks and notes, that he didn't like, but he did his best to hide his anger. He didn't want to scare Miora. "Well, I promise I won't hit you. I don't like anyone hitting kids, please find me if someone hits you. I'll make sure they don't do it again." He promised her, he would have said it in the ancient language, but he was guessing she couldn't speak if very well. "And I will help him." Taesi piped in.

Then Riley remembered her first question, "Yes, that's meat. It's venison, deer meat." He couldn't help but smile when she spoke to her stomach, then her following statement. That sold it for him, this girl was smart and adorable. "You are a smart girl, Riley will take care of you. If not I'll lick him." Riley shivered at the thought, "She has barbs on her tongue that can skin a deer. So that's a worse threat than it sounds." Despite her threat however, he reached over and scratched Taesi's head lightly, right behind one of the spikes on her head.

"One of these days, I'll have to cook for you myself. I'm quite a good cook if I do say so, had to learn while I was living on my own." Riley smiled at Miora, slowly reaching up and touching Miora on the head gently. He quickly lowered his hand, then looked toward the wall of his tent, his face going blank for the moment. "He is speaking with someone with his right now, asking about something for you." Taesi explained for Miora, Riley didn't even blink, barely looked like he was breathing. Blinking and turning back to Miora, he smiled at her. "I just spoke with one of my superiors. They don't mind if you stay as long as you want."

Riley finally sat down on the ground, not even caring that he was sitting in the dirt. "I will gladly look after you Miora, but I'm training to become a full Dragon Rider still. Most of the time, I have only a few hours of free time, today is a lesson for the ancient language which I can speak fluently already. So I don't need to be there, so I don't know how much I'm going to be around."

[Lisenet]

Miora ate in a rotation—a bite of strawberry, tear of bread and strip of meat—so she would remember how wonderful they all tasted and not get tired of any one too fast. Most of her bread had always been the stale bits the baker didn’t mind if she took. At his comment on people hitting her she just shrugged. Everyone got hit sometimes, just the less money you had the more pushing-around you got. And it was her own fault for getting caught. As Miora crammed strawberry, bread and meat into her mouth one after the other, the most curious of sensations were beginning to make themselves aware. Her stomach didn’t feel particularly sure what to do with all the foodstuff she was stuffing into it, a bit like a tailor told to fix an order of chainmail. But it also didn’t ache anymore, and that it had always done. Whatever the second feeling was, she decided at once that she liked it.

If not I’ll lick him. “That’s a worse threat than it sounds.” Miora’s eyes widened, and she gazed down at the purple dragon, subconsciously moving to bring her bare legs up under her skirt to hide them. ”Well I hope he was dead before you went at him. Or did he deserve it?” To Riley, she added, ”An’ I probably wouldn’t know the difference, but knock yourself out. I like food.” But Riley had gone slightly strange. Miora stopped chewing and stared at him, suspicious. Taesi explained, and Miora swallowed. ”So it’s not just you as talks without sound? That’s convenient.” But it also meant that running messages here wouldn’t be any good. She’d have to find something else to do to be either useful or just to occupy herself.

Riley recovered from his spat of mind-talking and looked at her again. She looked back, still leery of things she couldn’t see or hear to understand. ”Well why would they?” she wanted to know. ”There’s only so much trouble someone my size can get into, and if I do manage to find some, one of your’n dragon friends will eat me, problem solved.” Miora licked her finger and gathered up the scattering of breadcrumbs on the plate before setting it aside and shifting her feet around so she could scowl at the splinters shallowly sewn through the bottoms and sides of them. There weren’t all that many, but they itched, and they caught on things when she moved.

She almost laughed when Riley said he wouldn’t be around much to look after her. Looking up she said bluntly, ”I don’t know who you think I am, Master Rider, but there’s nobody that looks after street children. I been on my own watch since I was….five? I think? I’ll be all right.” She returned her attention to her foot and stuck out a hand in his direction. ”Got a knife?” Her fingers were too blunt to dig the little buggers out, and she’d been able to do it herself last time someone loaned her a little blade for it.

[Riley]

Riley watched the little girl and smiled, she was enjoying the food for sure. Taesi watched her curiously, cocking her head to the side as she continually ate in rotation. "Riley, why does she not just eat it all at once? It's more efficient." Riley looked down at the dragon, glad that she had only spoken to him. "Because silly dragon, she's trying to savor it, look at her face. Besides, by the looks of her it's been a while since she had a good meal." Taesi looked at Miora for a few moments, then back up at Riley. "Bah, all you humans look alike." Riley simply rolled his eyes and lightly flicked the dragon's head.

Riley looked back down at the girl and then started laughing when she made her comment about no one watching after street children. "Well, I'm going to do my best to look after you little one. I was forced into a life I didn't want because of a lack of opportunity. I won't let that happen to someone else. I'll give you what opportunities I can." Riley smiled at her, removing his sword belt and setting it aside, then sitting down on the side of the cot. "Besides, you seem a smart girl. It's a waste for that potential to be lost because someone didn't help you." He figured it best to leave it at that for now, she probably didn't want to think about any offers he had for a better education just yet.

Then she asked for a knife to take care of some splinters, smiling at her again he shook his head. "I got something better for you." He said, raising his right hand to her feet and closing his eyes. He forced his way through the core of his power, the gedway ignasia on his hand began to glow shining light onto Miora's feet. Riley muttered a single line in the ancient language, the splinters painlessly sliding from her feet and disintegrating. Her feet healed, Riley thought of something else and muttered another line in the ancient language. "There, no more splinters. And I put another spell that should stop you from getting more splinters.. at least on your feet."

[Lisenet]

”Well, I’m going to do my best to look after you, little one.” Miora lifted her eyes to watch him, wary. She needed no looking-after, she hadn’t in years. ”But I don’t need help,” she said at the end of his speech. ”I do just fine watching myself, or do you want to watch me because your lessons are so boring?” Miora had taken care of herself for four years, with the occasional assistance of other beggar-children. Rarely had she needed or accepted the help of an adult—most of them wanted things they wouldn’t tell a street-muffin, and those things weren’t the same as what the children wanted. One of Miora’s friends had been caught and sold as a slave by a man who only wanted to help him. All in all, she was leery of ‘help’. It didn’t sound like anything healthy. It sounded like manipulation.

”And of course I’m smart,” she said, utterly baffled with his line of thinking. How did he think she’d survived this long without caretakers unless she was clever enough to do what was rightfully an adult’s job even though she was just a child? Miora dug in one of the two pockets of her threadbare apron and produced the small object—rather meaningless to her—she’d found in his pocket when he’d first picked her up on the beach. A note of apology coloring her tone—she wasn’t accustomed to stealing from people who had done her a good turn—she held it out to him and said, ”Sorry, it’s a habit.”

Miora didn’t believe him when he said he had something better than a knife for her splinters. But she’d even waggled her fingers at him and he didn’t so much as flinch to hand over the dagger sitting complacently on one of his belts. Riley lifted the hand with the silver cupped in the palm and the silver grew inexplicably brighter. Miora flinched to cover her eyes, her knowledge of magic being thin and composed mostly of inconsistent rumors, and squirmed uncomfortably when the skin all over the bottoms of her feet felt run-over with nettles. But she didn’t want to move in case he did his magicikng wrong and took out a bone instead of the splinters.

”There,” he said after a few seconds and some muttering. ”No more splinters.”

Miora opened her eyes and peered down at her feet, wiggling the toes to make sure the bones were where she’d left them, and gently touched all the spots where bits of boat had been sticking out of them. ”Well….” She didn’t particularly want to thank him—magic made her nervous, and he hadn’t even asked first. But she wasn’t used to people doing nice things for her without getting something in return, so she didn’t know what to say to the phenomenon he’d presented. And of all the things she’d learned on her own, proper manners weren’t one of them. She hadn’t ever needed them before. ”That’s useful,” she finally said. Stating the truth when she didn’t know what else to do didn’t always work, but often enough it did.

Her stomach twisted in on itself momentarily, and Miora scowled, sidetracked from her disapproval of the magic competing with her appreciation for the result. Pulling her knees up and resting her chin on them to better lock her stomach in where it was supposed to be, she sighed and wished good things didn’t have to be so uncomfortable sometimes. But better still than going hungry. She took up his nearly-empty waterskin from where she’d left it right next to her and drained it, wondering if that would help. ”What is it you’re learning here, then?” she wanted to know. ”And why do you live in a tent?” She looked at Taesi. ”And why do you glitter?” She scrubbed at her eyes. They ached, and she didn’t want them to. She was too busy trying to think of how to convince any other, bigger dragons that might live in this strange place not to eat here to think about glaring at her own eyeballs if she could.

[Riley]

Riley snatched the object back quickly, sighing at having it back and quickly slipping the shrrg tooth fang necklace around his neck again. "Thank you for returning this, it means a great deal to me." He toyed with the fang for a few moments, before looking back up at her and smiling. Riley hadn't even realized that it meant so much to him before she had held it out for him. He slowly considered it, whether or not to explain the story behind it to her. In the end he decided to only explain a part of it. "This is the fang of a creature called a shrrg. It's a wolf... Only the size of a horse." He stated, he remembered putting it in his pocket earlier, he guessed that he forgot to put it back on afterward.

Riley stood up from the bed and stretched, picking his sword belt up off the ground and hanging it from one of the posts in the tent. "Yes it can be quite useful, but it's something that shouldn't be taken lightly. Magic can give us nearly anything with enough energy and the correct spell, but what kind of life would that be? Sounds rather dull and pointless to me." He said, turning back to face her and putting his hands in his pockets. Riley looked down at her, his azure eyes examining her face for a few moments. "Think about it like this, if you had a platter that magically filled with food whenever you needed it. Useful and would save your life, but you would lose all skills needed to hunt and search for food."

Riley smiled when she started asking more questions, letting out a low chuckle. "We're learning everything from geography, to math, history, magic, swordplay, the customs of the different races in Alagaesia, languages, healing herbs. The list goes on and on. The Riders are many things, scholars, teachers and healers first." Taesi looked up at Miora, "We live in tents because this island is still being built. I glitter-" Riley started the next part of her sentence, "Because she is a dragon and-" Taesi took over for him this time, "Dragons are the most beautiful of creatures." Taesi's voice contained obvious pride.

[Lisenet]

”This is the fang of a creature called a shrrg.”

Miora’s eyes widened. A wolf the size of a horse? ”A sherg?” Something about the word made it difficult for her to pronounce. Maybe it was an elvish word; they liked unpronounceable things. ”And how come you’ve got his tooth about your neck? Seems more likely that he’d have yours. Or she.” She watched him with a newfound awe. Sure, he had a silver hand and a purple dragon and he’d gotten her splinters to shove off and supposedly she wouldn’t get any more, but the first two oddities were just by chance, and the second he’d learned here because of the first. Being the sort of person that earned the tooth of a horse-sized wolf seemed to Miora the mix of innate traits and careful practice that didn’t often occur in the same person at the same time.

”Magic can give us nearly anything….You would lose all the skills needed to hunt and search for food.”

She nodded. ”Glad I don’t do it then. I need all my skills to stay right where I left them last.” She dug the heel of her hand into one of her eyes. She had spent the last week in a boat doing nothing but lie there with her face in the only bit of shadow she could find, under the soft wooden bench—she was not tired now that she’d finally gotten out. Although now that her belly was nice and warm and cramped, the rest of her was feeling rather cool and strung-out. Why oh why couldn’t a good thing ever just be a good thing without other irritating things coming along to heckle it?

Listening to the two of them talk back and forth, one voice in her head and the other in her ears, was halfway maddening but Miora didn’t mind. It was interesting to listen to them, and she’d never met a dragon before. She’d rather thought they would be larger, but then again, human babies arrived small too. Taesi was probably just younger than she sounded. But Miora didn’t want to ask; you didn’t ask ladies how old they were, and race regardless, Taesi was still a girl, even if Miora didn’t consider herself a lady. She would only be insulted if anyone ever called her one. Ladies were vexing, silly, stupid things only useful as decoration. Most of them weren’t worth knowing.

Miora stuck a hand out and grabbed the first fold of fabric in the bundle she’d ignored previously, shook it out and dragged it over her shoulders, wrapping it around herself and tucking in her chin. She was used to being cold, but that didn’t mean she had to like it, or pretend she wasn’t. ”Probably,” she agreed with the small dragon. ”I haven’t seen all the creatures, but still you’re probably the prettiest. Even the nicest spiders don’t sparkle. But I bet they wish they did. They make such pretty webs but most people don’t think they’re pretty themselves.” Her throat stretched as she buried a yawn in her knees. ”They are though. They’ve got all those legs and they never get tangled up like I would if I had that many legs and they move like little dancers….” She slowly let her head rest sideways on her drawn-up knees. ”I think I’m tired,” she declared, resigned. She wanted to ask more questions.

[Riley]

Riley smiled at the girl, well maybe he would have to explain it after all. "Well, this is one shrrg that no one will need to worry about again. A couple years ago I killed it and became known as Wolfsbane." He tapped the fang on his neck again, "I didn't get this for being the strongest, or the best, I got this for being smart. That thing nearly killed me, something like that isn't defeated by being the strongest or the most skilled. It's defeated be fighting smart. If you'd like, maybe one day I'll teach you what I mean." For a few reasons, today was not the time to teach her anything like that. Mostly because she was tired, but also for other reasons.

Riley watched her cover herself up, then got up and retrieved a lantern, lighting it with a tender box, he set it on the table beside Miora. "Here you go, this should help you." He offered her a smile again as he leaned away from the lantern, he wasn't cold. Taesi looked up at Miora, and nodded her head. "It's only natural, I am a dragon after all." Riley rolled his eyes at the obvious amount of pride in her voice, that was something that they were going to have to work on. Her pride, but now wasn't the time, besides, it could be funny for now. It was typically something that wouldn't matter for the time being, but once they were out in the world...

Riley smiled at Miora and stood up from the cot, "Go ahead and cover up, get some rest. I'll just be over here at the desk studying." As Riley went back to the desk and sat down, pulling a scroll to him and opening it, Taesi didn't move. She curled up on the ground by the cot, her head resting just so, so that she could watch Miora. "Rest, if you want when you wake up, we will get you more food." The dragon closed her eyes, her mouth opened wide as she let out a long yawn before settling back in her spot and trying to get some sleep herself. She kept a constant link to Riley however, learning what he was reading as he was reading it.