Chapter Thirteen
Dekani licked her shoulder, not even wincing. Her shoulder didn’t hurt anymore, but it didn’t feel right either. Her arm was useless flesh. Nakomii didn’t understand, and Dekani hardly understood too. There was no blood, no torn flesh, and no pain. Her shoulder was healed, and yet…
And yet, it didn’t work anymore. Her hunting was starting to suffer; Nakomii was bringing down large prey, so it didn’t matter so much, but…
Dekani looked down at the ground, away from her injured-yet-not shoulder. She felt guilty, making Nakomii do all the hunting. It wasn’t fair to Nakomii, good hunter though he was. And she was restless, staying close to the bone pile, leaving only to clean herself in the snow. And even in that she had difficulty, for when she had two arms that worked she was able to roll by alternately pushing the ground. Now, she had to hunch her shoulders. It didn’t work so well, but she was starting to get clean.
And soon it would be spring. The prey would be easier to catch, and Dekani could hunt then… if Nakomii didn’t insist she relax until she could use her arm again.
Clean though she was, the forced idleness was starting to take its toll on the woman. Not in loss of muscle and gain in fat, because her species’ nature was to use muscle as reserve energy. No, she was becoming listless, eyes dull and she slow to respond.
Steps through slush reached Dekani’s ears, and she looked towards them. Nakomii. Though he could hide from prey, he couldn’t hide from her. If that was a good thing, and Dekani hoped it was, well… who knew what it meant? Though she remembered vaguely, distant and unreachable, something about a game…
Shaking her head, she got up and walked over to the dragon. “Let me help Nakomii.” She reached out her good arm to grab a horn; Nakomii had a hoofed and horned creature slung over his back, and appeared to be struggling.
“No! No, my little one, you are still not well!” Nakomii threw himself to the side, and Dekani’s hand closed on empty air. The spark that was starting to form inside her went out, and she plodded beside him. Oh, she was still silent, but Nakomii could see the effort it took to be quiet.
“How do you feel today, my little one?” Nakomii was trying to understand, to wait for her to heal, but it was so hard, when his little one was so hurt.
“I am fine, Nakomii.” Nakomii nodded, seeing no reason to look further, and sighed with relief as he dropped the prey to the ground. He started to eat, and then paused.
“Come, little one, eat! I went hunting just for you, you know.” He forced a tone of joviality into his voice, though it pained him, as she gave him the faintest of smiles and crouched beside him. She dug her good hand into the side of the carcass, and pulled out a gobbet of flesh. She ate as he did, and stopped long before he did. Nakomii did his best not to worry, but it was getting so hard! Why had she gone after the big cat, when she knew, surely she had known, that she was likely to die?
Walking over to where his little one sat, he crouched beside her. “Little one…?”
“Dekani! I am Dekani! Not ‘your little one’! Dekani!” In sudden fury, the broken waif became an empowered woman, teeth bared and good hand waving in the air. Nakomii shrank back from the force of her words, and flattened his ears to lessen the volume.
“I am Dekani, Nakomii, cannot you see that? You are doing me no help by keeping me here, to rot! Yes, you feed me; yes, you cared for me, but Nakomii… How am I to heal here? I have faced death before, it does not frighten me, and I have healed from wounds almost as bad as these! And I had no help, nor any thoughts, to aid me then!” Dekani paused, glaring.
In truth, none of her battles, with wolves or lynx, had come close to the wounds she received from the plains cat. But it was not how she saw it, her memory imperfect.
“I must hunt, Nakomii. I must.” Her words were quieter, gentler. “I cannot stay here forever. The Mother did not intend for that.” Surely the Mother intended great things from her child!
“But… here you are safe.” Nakomii was confused. Here, he could feed and care for his little one, protect her from danger. Why did she want to face danger again, when she had almost died once?
Here, the two differed. Nakomii was a dragon, and had always been aware of his mortality, and yet had never been exposed to a life or death situation that was his own. And besides, his species was one of the top predators, indeed, on the mountains they were the only large hunters with their abilities. And yet, dragons were always aware of their own mortalities, for ignoring danger could lead to poison or flying into a tree or falling into water and drowning.
Dekani and her kind fought tooth and nail for every day, every night they lived. Truly, the strong survived when death hunted above, and predators waited in the shadows. If enough food was found, if enough water was found, if the dragons were avoided, if the midsize hunters were avoided or bested… it was far too many ‘ifs’ to take life the way the dragons did. Death truly was no stranger to the pale woman, who found the dragon’s idea of safety stifling and a little frightening.
Dekani was determined that she hunt. Nakomii was determined that she stay safe. Neither was prepared to back down, and as they talked and argued, night fell and the moon, Dekalagh, rose, they went to sleep.
And, for the first time since the first winter together, when Dekani had crept to Nakomii’s side to sleep, they slept apart. Dekani curled up in the pelvic bone, and Nakomii curled up by the skull.
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Nym hooded her eyes, wings half spreading as she listened to the story of how Dekalagh and Anosan had first worked together to defeat their enemy Gimik, the fire dragon. Dekalagh and Anosan had trapped Gimik beneath the earth, where he raged but could not escape. Sometimes, his rages caused earthquakes, or fire to spout from the ground like water.
“… and so, Dekalagh and Anosan found they worked together well, and enjoyed it. The evil Gimik was entrapped, and the two could relax, and finally talk without arguing. Gimik, forever angry, still lives beneath the earth. He is the one who caused the quake yesterday, but the Mother and the Father are watching over us, to make sure that we, the chosen children, are safe. Now, do not bother this old drake anymore.” Rashia smiled at the young ones and Nym, eyes nearly disappearing in the folds of his cheeks.
“Amazing how many ‘nets want to hear you tell that story, tora Rashia.” Nym rubbed cheeks with the old dragon, content to be with family. “Though you should hear the story Obelisk is weaving. You might want to set him straight.”
Rashia resettled himself, frail joints protesting at the movement. “Catch me a rabbit, my dear, and tell me of it. Trying to rival this old story teller, is he?” The old dragon chuckled, eyes dancing in merriment.
Nym laughed with him, then turned to the forest. In only a few bounds, she was in the trees, and a few minutes searching netted her several rabbits. She ate three, saving the other two for Rashia. Tucking them in her jaws, she bounded back to the old one, dropping the still warm prey before him. “Here you are! Now, prepare to laugh, Obelisk surely got stupid.”
Rashia waved a paw, already swallowing the last of the first rabbit. “Do tell.”
“Well,” Nym leaned forward, though there was no other around. “Obelisk says Nakomii returned; how I wish I’d been there to welcome him back! But apparently, Nakomii grew, he’s no longer a tiny little thing, but actually strong, and big enough to be considered a real dragon now.”
“Nakomii?” Rashia’s brows furrowed, confused.
“Nakomii? That little permanent ‘net I left food for? Remember? The one all the others picked on, tora Rashia! Goodness, talk about a faulty memory…” Grumbling to herself, Nym settled her wings against her back, rolling her eyes to the sky as she mentally asked the Father for patience.
“Ah! I remember him! Always interested in my stories, but none of the other dragonets would let him listen. Always came alone. Go on.”
“Well, like I said, apparently Nakomii got bigger. More than half Obelisk’s size! And the others say his voice got even deeper, if that’s possible. That it hummed in their bones! Anyway, Obelisk decided to take Nakomii pest hunting, because he’d never done so before. I don’t think he’s ever hunted before Obelisk took him out, and I’m not talking just pests.
“Well, they went hunting, and apparently Obelisk ripped apart a pest that had another pest inside. And the pest that was inside the pest? It was a chosen of Dekalagh! That’s what I think. Obelisk says it was just a white pest.”
Rashia nodded, eyes narrowing. “Horrors. Did the first pest eat the chosen?”
“That’s what Obelisk says, tora Rashia. Nakomii left, he was screaming according to Obelisk. Then Obelisk started spouting nonsense… Just because Nakomii’s small doesn’t mean he can’t handle the cruelties of the world.” An expression of disgust crossed Nym’s face, and she didn’t bother to hide it. She herself was seen as a little strange, not as strange as Nakomii had been, but strange enough. Few dragons were chosen by Anosan, unlike Dekalagh’s favorites. Anosan’s chosen were… different. Nym herself… well, she wasn’t male, like all the other Anosan had chosen in the past were. So the other dragons didn’t know whether to be in awe or just laugh at her.
“Obelisk is a fool. Most do not know this, but pests don’t lay eggs like we do. The only reason most are ignorant is because they believe what they’ve been told about pests; that they’ve been put on this world as a warning, and must be destroyed.” Rashia sneered, looking over at where the fool sayers might be, or the direction. If Nym didn’t know Rashia could hardly tell the difference between light and dark, she would have believed he could see. But she knew better.
“Well, I listen to you, and you’re older then anyone, and know more then anyone. So I’m informed only the truth, right?” Nym tilted her head, teasing. Rashia never said anything he wasn’t sure of, which meant that, indeed, whatever he said was accepted as truth. Many of the dragon laws had come about because the creator of the law had gone to Rashia.
“Of course, girl! What, do you think I’d lie? Now, go away. If you need an excuse, say you’re going to look for a mate, you’re about the right age for that. Now, let me sleep.” Rashia lowered his head to the ground, eyes closing as he drifted off. Nym got to her feet and moved as quietly as she knew how, and once in the forest she hurried to tell her friends and family Rashia’s excuse.
How had he known what she planned? Of course, Rashia was tora, which meant he was master of information, to use a lose translation from the old language to the current. But still, it was almost insulting that she couldn’t keep secrets from him! Not that he insulted her, but she insulted herself. If she couldn’t trick Rashia, well…
Her friends accepted the excuse with just a few questions as to why she wasn’t traveling in a group. Nym dodged the question with her own, such as when would the other loners decide to get moving, hmm? She used the same answer to her parents' questions, but wasn’t quite as worried about her parents as her friends. Her parents had a new dragonet to worry about, her friends didn’t. Well, to be figurative.
Finally, with only a few hours of daylight left, Nym ran through the forest for the sheer joy of running.
She had no trouble catching her breakfast the next morning, or finding a clearing in which to take off. She was slim, so would not have the same flight problems as most dragons did on take off if her wings weren’t also smaller. There was rumor that wingless dragon was somewhere in her lineage, she did her best to ignore that.
Travel didn’t give her any problems, though she had to look hard to find a place where she felt comfortable landing in the plains.
And when something big, hairy and smelling of musk and prey slammed into her, a tusk impaling her trough her wing and missing vital organs by inches either way, Nym was welcomed to the plains with all the vicious pain it could muster.
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Nakomii was going to be very angry with her, Dekani was sure. She had had enough! He was trapping her, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to fight back if this continued! So, she had snuck away while he slept. He hadn’t noticed, for they continued to sleep at different points of the bone pile.
Now, she gloried in the sight of snow melting, and the first greens gilded with blue-silver light. Dekalagh shone down upon this venture, her eye opened wide so that the most light could guild Dekani’s way. Dekani, for her part, had already caught and eaten a vole. Her arm was starting to become less of a hindrance, though it certainly wasn’t helpful, swinging with every step the way it did.
Though she wasn’t hungry, Dekani continued to hunt. The last of Nakomii’s prey was gone, eaten earlier that night. So Dekani would have to find something bigger for Nakomii to take down and bring back to the bone pile, though first he would yell at her.
Let him. She was having fun.
Already, Dekalagh was sinking to rest, while Anosan was starting to rise, his eye casting light before him, so Dekalagh wouldn’t bump into any stars as she retired for the day.
And, Dekani realized, she had come far further then she had planned. Nakomii would be awake now, and worried. Well, he’d just have to follow her scent trail; she wasn’t in the mood to turn back. Though… she was headed for the mountains. That hadn’t been her idea.
And yet… it was her game to play… whatever that meant. She remembered saying that, remembered it meant something about the mountains, remembered her plans. Lips thinning with a purpose that had been temporarily lost, the woman continued to walk.
It would be better, she thought, if it was warmer. Her people would be less likely to attack her if they had eaten, and if Nakomii carried food so much the better. Her people would tolerate him, maybe, if he hunted with them.
In the distance, or not so distant considering her eyesight, large humps where there should be none rested. Dekani paused, and sniffed the air. There was a faint breeze, but it was coming the wrong way for either she or the unknown creatures to smell each other. On the one hand, that was a good thing, because the creatures wouldn’t be prepared for her. On the other hand, she wouldn’t be able to tell what they were until she came close, really close. And that wasn’t good. Still… they were very big…
Making up her mind, Dekani walked towards the humps, which started to become something of shape and color and with a name.
“Mammoths,” Dekani whispered. Nakomii had told her about mammoths, had learned about them from someone named Tora. And Dekani had learned about Tora from Nakomii. And there were mammoths. Nakomii could fly up and then dive, catching one of them and killing it-
“Just what do you think you’re doing out here, Dekani?” Nakomii’s breath on the back of her neck startled Dekani, made her jump. A small gasp escaped her lips, when once such a happening would not have happened, and even if it did no noise would pass her lips.
“Nakomii… mammoths.” Dekani pointed, as if her words were not enough. She was playing dumb, as though she didn’t understand why Nakomii’s voice was lower then normal and why he smelt angry.
“Yes, Dekani, I see them. They can wait until you tell me just what is going on!” Nakomii was furious, and, in his opinion, rightfully so. Dekani had disobeyed him, and was acting as if that didn’t matter.
“Hunting, idiot! That’s what I do. I don’t stay in one place, so… Nakomii, I wasn’t just going to sit around like a rabbit, frightened of every breeze. Get used to it. I’ve already caught a vole, so I can still hunt. Now, go get us a mammoth!” Dekani pointed again, and this time all Nakomii did was sigh and jump into the air. Dekani nodded as he disappeared from her own limited sight, then reappeared, diving down at one of the smaller mammoths, landing on its back.
This time, the mammoths didn’t stampede towards Dekani, but away. And it took even less time for Nakomii to bring his prey down. Dekani started to walk towards him, slowly because she didn’t see reason to hurry.
And her foot came down on a wing.
She looked down.
And screamed.
She’d stepped on a dragon.
