Would this day ever end?  This entire adventure had passed in one day, in one evening.  Yet, in my mind, in my aching legs, and in my relationship with Hinte, a whole cycle might have passed.  More had happened today than in any other cycle of my life.

Routine dominated my days. Wake up before the second dawn ring, Kinri. Check by the coutiers, maybe your brother finally sent a letter.  Go to moil at the Llygaid Crwydro every day, except (stars, don’t forget!) not on the purportedly-sacred crestdays and troughdays.  Hope Cthwithach-sofran has time to teach you anything, else you’ll have nothing else to show the day wasn’t waste.  Let Uvidet-gyfar drag you out to play cards at the Moyo-Makao every other day.  Check by the courtiers again, you never know.  If you grow bored of things⁠ ⁠—⁠ when you grow bored of things⁠ ⁠—⁠ you can beg the guards at the south gate to let you out, and fly some laps in the pretty red ravines south of town.  Then sneak out at night and look at the endless stars.

All of the excitement and terror of this break from routine had exhausted me…  but it was worth it, to spend some time with Hinte that wasn’t just phatic fumbling.

 

With that thought that my thoughts lighted back in the present, only to turn to a springing worry that maybe this all may just as well have ruined my chance to be friends with Hinte.  Worries like company, and it wasn’t two breaths before my dewing turned to considering all big, important dragons around me and what they were thinking.  Why was Adwyn glancing back at me?  Why was Rhyfel walking so close to the orange drake?  What were Cynfe and the faer murmuring about?  Why did it sound like nothing related to the humans? Did Hinte feel as alone as she looked right now?

With my heartbeat quickening and my feet stumbling forward as we followed the faer toward the meeting room I found myself planning my next conversation with Hinte, searching long the face of the orange-eyed wiver, wracking my brain for something simple that might thrust us into a nice tension-wringing exchange⁠ ⁠—⁠ but nothing came, even when I opened my mouth hoping anything would come out nothing came, and I closed my mouth and licked my fangs⁠ ⁠—⁠ did anyone else smell my worry?⁠ ⁠—⁠ but maybe this wasn’t so serious, maybe this wasn’t worth all this worry?⁠ ⁠—⁠ and maybe you should slow down, calm down, and breathe, Kinri, and–and with that you find yourself finally slowing, stopping to breathe, and breathing deep.  I continued on, relaxing my shoulders, and curling my neck.  I was fine.  This wasn’t anything to worry about.

I didn’t really know anyone here besides Hinte — and I couldn’t really have a normal conversation with the military adviser or the faer, anyway.  Maybe secretary or the high guard?  But the blue-green wiver padded in front of us, murmuring beside the faer, and even the scarlet-scaled high guard’s mere presence felt intimidating.

The atmosphere here sat so serious on my wings. My mindeye aimed searching, longing glances to the silly side of things.  But the gyras spent in the courts and parties of sky, of my family dragging me to act just like them, obscured my sight, and all I felt were old instincts returning.

Keep your tail down, hang it by your hindlegs. Do not raise it, do not coil it.  You are not some dewy-fanged slut or farm-wiver.

Clear your eyes when someone looks at you, keep your frills listening.

Keep your frills by your neck.  No one wants to see them.

Flick your tongue if you must, but do not wave it.  Nothing smells that good.

If some sot’s scent is so strong you can smell it, wave your tongue. They clearly think they smell that good.

Keep your fangs in your mouth, and keep your venom on your tongue. If I can smell your dew, something is wrong.

And hide your fangs, you are not some dewy-fanged slut or farm-wiver.

We’d reached a single black bamboo door, and when the faer inclined her head, Cynfe darted in front.  The doors revealed a meeting room dim and empty.  Light from the hall rushed forth, and met with the night sifting in from a wide window perched high at the opposite end of the room, a dance of moonlight, lamplight, and coy shadows cast by interminate, ambiguous movements of unseen figures.

Cynfe slinked in, quickly lighting the lamps that circled at the farthest fringes of the room.  Now lit, those lamps reversed the flow of light pouring in through the window; and, revealed a simple room centered with a drab gray slab higher than my knee and orbited by soft mats, and further away, smaller and darker slabs.  The triangle-like center slab was glaring with piercing yellow specks and brimming with long, angular streaks of red.  Around the slab sat the nine long mats, concave and fit for lying in with some comfort⁠ ⁠—⁠ but not too much comfort: this was a meeting room.

Various maps scattered around the walls and surfaces in a mess, and vague books lined a single bookshelf.  But the center of the slab’s surface lay blank.  The faer walked to the farthest corner of the three, and stood there.

I watched the faer gesture Hinte toward one of the other slabs off the to the side.  The black-cloaked wiver stepped over and dumped the bodies overtop the maps and I copied her.  As we stepped away I saw Adwyn glancing over at the bodies, the orange drake’s features curling into a disgusted sneer.  I found myself thinking of the ornery musician on the catwalks.

The faer had lain on the mat at the head of the slab, Cynfe beside the faer, and Rhyfel beside Adwyn, those two lying at a different corner of the slab, the orange drake brushing a wing against the other.

We could have lay beside the blue-green wiver — she seemed interesting, and I was doing a bad job of hiding my repeated glances at her scales or her black and gold robes.  A secretary⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe she could tell me what I had to do to become one.

I was stepping toward her when Hinte lay the last corner of the table, away from everyone else, and I didn’t have much a of choice then.

With that, the faer spoke, brilles cloudy, pulling a stack of paperwork from⁠ ⁠—⁠ somewhere.  She said, “As we are all present and seated, Cynfe will you review the incident?”

The secretary recited Hinte’s account of this evening in rapid bursts of y Draig I had trouble following.  The cliff tongue had always been my weakest, after Pteron, and the one I had used least until⁠ ⁠—⁠ a few dances ago.

I didn’t see need to listen, anyway. And I didn’t need to think about how I fit into all of this.  It was easier to try to slip into the facade of old Kinri, be a passive observer, try to learn what all the dynamics here were.

Adwyn lounged on his mat. His frills twitched in listening, but it was effortless listening.  Beside him, Rhyfel had a frown and frills spread wide, nodding at every word from the secretary.

The faer had said these two were the only two with anything worth saying on the matter.  Adwyn, I could more than see; in all my experience with him, he’d never given an impression besides coiled, waiting intelligence.  Rhyfel seem to have more to him than impressions, though.

The red wiver lay idly watching over the table. In front of her, she had a stack of pages dense with text and held in her wings a glass pen.  You couldn’t know what sat on those pages, but it was what had occupied her while the secretary recited.

Now though, as her secretary’s speech seemed to be cadencing, she watched over the table with a certain intensity, even as her brilles remained deeply clouded, and even as she rubbed her eyes in apparent tiredness.

Maybe it was the power you knew lurked in those eyes, maybe it was the harsh but balanced angles of her face.  Whatever it was, her gaze hardly left Adwyn and Rhyfel, and I was glad for that.

For their part, Adwyn frowned and Rhyfel nodded along.

“…and that is all.”  The secretary wiver set a wetly inked page on the table and produced up another, this one blank.

When she finished, the mysterious high guard whistled loudly and turned his savage grin to Hinte.  “Nice acts, Gronte-wyre.  Mighty impressive,” he said.  Beside him, Adwyn gave a thoughtful hum, and the faer was glancing between them.  Rhyfel continued, “They must make ’em fierce in those forests!  I know your boy, Ushra, from way back.  The resembalance is something.”

The faer coughed then, and gave the high guard a pointed look. The high guard tilted his head, and she spoke low and casual, saying, “Your father knew Ushra.  Your tongue slipped.”

“Yeah, yeah, Ushra and the ol’ Rhyfel — she knows the story, I reason. Suffer it to say I heard all the old drake’s stories of that drafty old alchemist.” His voice came loud in the room.

The blue-green wiver was glowering at him, frills wrinkling. She jotted down Rhyfel’s commentary with sharp jerks.  As you glanced around, most were looking at Rhyfel, but Adwyn glanced at Cynfe.

The military adviser said, “The coordination and reaction of these humans gleans interesting.”  He steepled his feet, and said to Hinte, “You stood your ground well, Gronte-wyre.”  Hinte’s frills were twitching at the title.  He continued, “What is it you do?  You must work with Ushra in his clinic, correct?”

Rhyfel laughed. “If it’s still a clinic when you got to wait ’til the stars align with both moons on the crestday ’fore he deigns to overcharge you for an examination.”

Adwyn licked his eyes. “I can see the reasoning.” He waved an alula as he continued.  “Ushra wants to keep his return to the cliffs a rumor. Seeing to anyone at all is going to reveal that in the long run.  It is admirable that he does anyway.”

“Yeah yeah, he’s a good fellow — or was, maybe — but it doesn’t change that he charges out the sky.  It’s not like he’s starving for pyrite, at all.”

“Then seeing anyone at all would be a charity, would it not? Irregardless,”⁠ ⁠—⁠ he looked back to the dark-green wiver⁠ ⁠—⁠ “you might have your claws full helping your grandfather, but I say you look like you would make a fine guard.  Consider lighting by to see me and this lug here if you ever get tired of waiting around or cooking.” He gave a smile to Rhyfel.

Hinte looked to the ground at the offer, twiddling her claws.

I looked over to the faer, who’d returned to reading the paperwork in front of her.  Beside her, the blue-green wiver had a glare to match Hinte’s.

Cynfe said, “Let’s not forget our topic.” You’d startle to know she only sounded as exasperated as she did.  “Rhyfel, do you recognize these apes?”

The scarlet drake turned around to the corpses, flicking out his tongue and crooking his frills.  Then at once, he folded frills back in some triumph.  He was sliding to a stand, and saying “Ah yea, I know ’em.  A breed from those wet plains off the rocky coasts.  Called themselves the Ulfame, I recall.”

Adwyn stepped over to the scarlet drake, and together they picked through the human’s bags, the orange drake wearing an expression like having to wade through the filthy streets barefoot.  They pried open cloth bags, and patted down their armor.  My frills twitched.  Would the humans have objected to treating their belongings like this?

Rhyfel lifted a leg of the human — the same leg which Hinte’s knife had…  desiccated.

The high guard did laugh, but there was an complex undercurrent to it. “Like grandfather like father like daughter,” he said, and looked at Hinte.  I didn’t catch the look, only the wiver stiffening beside me.

He only said, “Be careful, Hinte.”

It was a while, Cynfe marking over her transcriptions, the faer alternately reading her papers or peering blearily at the dragons lying.  The sounds were the two drakes picking through bags, and whispering to each other.  I flicked my tongue, and smelled the intermingling of the holly, the cloying smell, the eyepaint, the grapes and my chamomile.  I didn’t wave my tongue, but I flicked it out just a little more.  Try as I did, there wasn’t much more than that⁠ ⁠—⁠ maybe a lingering lunch, maybe some tasteful colonge.  I did a little frown.  Mlaen didn’t smell like much.

It felt like a long time.  Maybe it was a matter of course, sitting here and twiddling my halluxes like I did, but it was a moment extended like there’d been a shortage of them.

At last, the orange drake came across some pouch, and tore into it, revealing a small folded piece of parchment.  Unfolding it, looking over it, he said,  “Ah, this must their script.  So tiny!  Rhyfel, you’ve studied languages⁠ ⁠—⁠ do you recognize any of this?”

The high guard took the parchment and scanned it. “Oh, the bloody Ulfame,” he said.  After a moment, he added, “I recognize this script, of course⁠ ⁠—⁠ those apes love to borrow from each other.  But I can’t ever keep hold of the difference between it, Kuazo and Jua-Mwanga,” he said, his tongue pronouncing with ease obscure syllables I’d never heard.

“Not too many to hold amind, at the very least. I’ll see what I can manage⁠ ⁠—⁠ but you’ll want to run this by ol’ Chwithach-gyfar over in that library of his, what’d he call it?  …Yeah, the Sgrôli ac Neidr. That old snake knows more about these humans than I ever will.  But I reckon I can taste the gist.”

Rhyfel scanned the page, for once his grin faltering, waning to an abstracted scowl.  He stared the page, claw tracing and retracing the lines of the parchments’ script.  He clouded his black eyes, and deliberated for a moment, then two, then ten.  They cleared.  When he spoke, the contemplation had tarnished all his earlier mirth.

“This is an odd dialect… But I can easily make out some talk of payment and travel⁠ ⁠—⁠ past the language barrier, the diction is all impressively straightforward for humans.  Not having a lick of trouble translating it.”

Adwyn, beside him, rolled his head and lightly hit him with a wing.

“Anyway, what I’m tasting is these apes were hired to explore the cliffs, or something in that way.  The armor and weapons they had could be foul intentions, but I reason it’s just for protection.

“I call this a peaceful expedition — they obviously know nothing about Gwymr/Frina or our cliffs.  Riddle it, what sort of squalled fool dresses up for traveling by the Berwem? In chain and leather?”

Adwyn gave a hissing laugh, but Cynfe still stabbed at the high guard with her humorless look.

The faer was looking up, first at Rhyfel, then around the slab. “So, attacking these creatures was a mistake?” she asked.

Yes. I almost said it aloud.

“You could say that, yeah.  I’d say it serves them right, ’croaching on our cliffs, attacking our dragons.”

The faer lifted her head, looking at the high guard. “I taste they will not take the killing of their explorers well, however.”

Rhyfel inclined his head and turned back to the bodies. Adwyn was on his mat already.

“My faer,” Hinte spoke, covering her right foot with her left, “I had little choice in the matter.  The first ape we encountered was nearly dead from the heat and its fall.  When I encountered its companions, they initiated hostilities.”

Hadn’t she said she leapt at the humans as soon as they shouted?

“They must have mistaken you for some manner of beast, I bet,” Cynfe said, looking up from her scroll.  Yet her wing still scratched lines in the paper!  “I know I would have!” she said with a clicking laugh.

Hinte hissed sharply, glaring at Cynfe.

Cynfe only laughed harder. “Oh, lighten up, little hatchling.  You jump out the smoke dripping blood and gore from your claws and wearing those creepy goggles.  I wouldn’t have greeted you with hugs or smiles either.”

Hinte relaxed a bit at this but snapped her tongue.

Maybe as a final slight, Cynfe added, “Oh, or maybe I would! I’m sure Gronte’s little hatchling jaunting around like some forest warrior is a cute sight~”

“Enough,” the faer said.

“Deepest apologies, my faer~” she said liltingly.

The faer sighed and instead turned to Hinte, saying, “I do not doubt that you made reasonable choices, Gronte-wyre, but they were choices, and no amount of reason will help us if this sparks conflict with these…  Ulfame.”  She pronounce the name slowly.  Despite this, it didn’t sound quite like what Rhyfel said.

Rhyfel spoke up, voice sharp. “The old wiver’s got a point. The humans won’t like their comrades disappearing at all, at all.  They’d send a legion, then an army, if they ever found out.”  The humans had armies?  He nudged Adwyn, and glanced the faer and Cynfe.  “You all know what happened to Banti/Gorphon.  It ain’t there anymore.”

I felt my brilles going pale.

“Well, do we have the numbers to handle conflict?” Cynfe was asking, voice leveling.

“At the moment,” Rhyfel started, “our ranks are pitiable. We can start a draft⁠ ⁠—⁠ it will take a trice to get them ready, but it can be done. But we’re little players here⁠ ⁠—⁠ I wouldn’t try to fight a human army the size of the Ulfame in the first place.”

I looked up at the ceiling, a simple gray brick pattern. My brilles clouded, and my frills folded against the drone of the meeting.  I didn’t want to imagine humans slaughtering a dragon town, and I didn’t want to imagine dragons killing more humans.  It just happened that way.

“Shall we reach out to the other strongholds?”

“Perhaps,” Adwyn said, licking an eye. “Though the forest-dwellers will want nothing to do with us, given Gronte’s betrayal.  No, I would not be surprised if they went as far as to try and help the humans against us, should they find out.”

“Then what of the ridge-dwellers? Or the sea-dwellers?” Cynfe was still transcribing the talk, but she lapsed when talking.

“Indeed, we could reach out the either of them. Though I would not advise advertising this…  precarious position.”

“It’s hardly precarious. The apes will take a while to react. They far from all-knowing.  Or knowing, period.”  Cynfe clicked her tongue. “Flightless mammals.  It’d take them cycles to move anywhere, and that’s after they get it between their frills that a party’s even gone missing.”

“A slow death is hardly preferable.”

Cynfe rolled her head, and her tone lost its light edge.  “We have good ties with the ridges, I would suggest we get our…  assistance from them.”

“I’d hesitate to give more to the gray scales. It’s — sour, as it is.”

“What about Dyfnder/Geunant?”  Adwyn’s brilles cleared as he watched the faer.

She gave Adwyn a look. I didn’t catch it, for it lasted just a second. But Adwyn looked away, puffing some air out of his nose.  He looked to the opposite end of the room from where the faer sat.

His gaze drifted, and for a second it met mine. There was hint of piercing analysis in the furrow of his brow and the bloodless clarity of his brilles.  Cynfe had given me similar looks, but where the secretary would look my way accident, Adwyn nursed a certain motivation that gave me pause.  I didn’t like this look.

The red wiver placed their foreknees on the slab, steepling their feet as they looked around.  The room was silent, reeling from the severed thread of conversation.

I looked around. Hinte looked up from her claws, staring at Rhyfel, indirect and furtive.  Cynfe had stopped scratching on her page, glancing around, waiting for someone to speak again.  Rhyfel shifted, as if he were about to say something, but it was Adwyn who broke the silence.

“Well, then do you think Pteron would condescend to help us, should we reach out?” He was smirking.

“Not without a pound of scales. Leave the damn Pteroni to their desert.”

“Um,” I started.  My frills flattened.  My minders would have snatched my tongue if I wasted breath on injections like that.

The room focused on me. My tail hung by my legs, but it twitched. I continued, “I⁠ ⁠—⁠ I think you may be missing an option.”  I spoke as steadily as I could.  “My faer,” I added, late.

“What is it?” Cynfe asked. Her eyes almost had a resting glare, intense and critical.

“Well, maybe going into this with pride and dominance is the wrong approach.  I mean, Rhyfel said we are a bit-players.  Can we appease the apes instead of trying to resist them?”

The faer hummed. “That is a valuable perspective, Specter-eti,” they said, meeting my eyes.  Like always, they were clouded to the point I couldn’t even tell what color they were.  I wanted to say white.  “And it would be worth considering, in any other situation.  I dislike violence”⁠ ⁠—⁠ Rhyfel snickered⁠ ⁠—⁠ “but there are few diplomatic options available to us while we bear four dead apes on our backs. These Ulfame will want Hinte’s head for this, and one dragon’s life is not worth even twenty dead apes.”

“Dearest apologies, my faer,” I said with pure sincerity, but Cynfe humphed and soon hissing laughter filled the room.  Only Hinte and I didn’t, and even she smiled.  “Sorry.”  I mumbled.

“She raises a another point, however,” Adwyn said, glancing. “We are missing angle, here.  Our cliffs are dangerous⁠ ⁠—⁠ would these silly apes not just see that these explorers perished from their own foolishness?”  He turned his gaze from me, regarding the nails of his forefoot held.

“But they will send a search party — search for sign of these apes. What will they think when they find none?” Cynfe said, looking at Adwyn.  As an afterthought, she scratched several, several lines of symbols onto the page as the orange drake considered.

“So we plant the bodies somewhere in the cliffs. If their search is any good⁠ ⁠—⁠ worth starting a war over⁠ ⁠—⁠ they will find them.”

“And the ripped throats? And the… leg Rhyfel pointed out?”

“Feed them to the wraiths or the cats.  It is not an implausible demise for a human that near the Berwem.”

“It is a coward’s solution,” said Cynfe. “We are not weak, and if we cannot deal with these apes⁠ ⁠—” She stopped.  “My point is that we cannot hide from the apes forever.  We should deal with the matter with confidence, rather than resting on our bellies and breathing for ignorance to save us.”

“We can monitor the cliffs, then. If my plan works, it will save us quite the worrying⁠ ⁠—⁠ at worst, do you think it won’t delay the humans?”  Adwyn hitched his wings.  He regarded the secretary with what was more a smile than a smirk, and you heard a certain allowance in his tone, but only when talking to her.  The secretary merely tossed her head.

“And another thing,” Rhyfel said, only now returning to his seat from examining the bodies.  “We need to clean up the camp site where these apes were sleeping.”

“Why?” Hinte asked.

“Your kills sure don’t sound⁠ ⁠—⁠ or look⁠ ⁠—⁠ clean, and the apes couldn’t have been living off what they could carry on their backs⁠ ⁠—⁠ any search party is going to find that campsite and reason out the rest.”

There were a few beats of silence after this, before the faer spoke, looking up from her paperwork.  “Is there anything else?”  She looked around the slab.  We all shook our heads in turn.

“Alright,” the red wiver said, then, addressing the room with a final cadence. “I do not think these approaches are exclusive.”  They stood up.  “Cynfe, please prepare missives for the mountain-dwellers.  Mention them that we may face difficulties, and may require help, but be terse with the details.  Dismissed.

“Rhyfel, enlarge our armed guard and begin patrolling the cliffs. That these creatures trespassed in our territory and were discovered by accident is unacceptable.  This could have happened before, and may happen again.  Dismissed.

“Adwyn. Prepare the inquirers to join you on a mission to the coasts. We shall try negotiation with these Ulfame, if the need arises.  I shall discuss the details with you in private.  Dismissed.”

There was a chorus of, “Yes, my faer,” as the three named stood and departed, and went their separate ways.  Cynfe left first, quickly. Rhyfel glanced at Hinte as he left, and Adwyn glanced at me.  As they left, the faer faced my companion.

“Begone, Gronte-wyre. You have done enough.”

Hinte lowered her head, standing and turning to the doors.  I started after her, but the faer called to me, saying, “Remain, Specter-eti.”

I couldn’t but do as I was told. I waved at Hinte, and she didn’t return it, limping away.  That stung.  After all we’d gone through, and she didn’t even wave?