“It’s got patches of dry skin,” Eric noted with concern. Was there something wrong with the dragon’s skin? He’d understood that the color was wrong, and he’d also never seen a black metallic sheen on a dragon before.

“That’s normal,” The dragon stablemaster said calmly, scratching his own skin reflexively. He had not bathed recently. He was a heavy set middle aged man with a few days of stubble, greasy skin and an unkept mop of brown hair. He was quite good at his job, but somewhat lacked hygiene.

Blake was the stablemaster’s name. He had a bulbus, somewhat red nose from his habit of drinking in his free time, and his brown eyes were cloudy. But he knew his dragons and how to care for them. At the moment he was feeling a bit curious about the strange dragon, mindful of his job and eager to prove his worth to the Duke, and bitterly resentful that some half elf adventurer was getting paid more than he was just to offer useless advice about dragons. Blake knew far more about the actual raising and care of domesticated dragons than any self important egg hunter, and he had complained bitterly to the steward about the Duke’s decision to hire the adventurer. The steward had not been sympathetic.

The steward, a man called Able. Was a tall overly thin older man in his fifties, greying hair, a carefully maintained thin waxed mustache, impeccable butler’s attire, and a stern calm demeanor, disliked the stablemaster for being slovenly. To him, proper grooming was an essential part of being part of the Duke’s household, and that the stablemaster had dispensation to be unkempt by a Duke who accepted that a stablemaster was a dirty job, sat poorly with him.

Able was the Duke’s right hand man and ran the household’s staff with a firm but fair hand. He was indispensable to making everything run smoothly, and in attempt to make this important event run more smoothly, heturned to look at the stablemaster and asked, “You have your slave girl ready to bathe the dragon?”

It broke the ice, the question was a simple normal bit of procedure that ended the stunned silence, the various people gathered felt free to begin quietly talking among themselves while Blake nodded and pushed forth a child armed with warm towels and a bottle of expensive oil. “Do your job,” Blake said harshly, embarrassed that he’d needed a reminder from the stuffy steward, while in the Duke’s presence. He resented the girl for not having acted on her own, despite the fact that he would have, and had in prior occasions, beaten her harshly for acting without orders in the past. Blake was a cruel and capricious master, and this girl was the one who faced the brunt of his cruelty.

Karla was a demihuman, as they were called. The sides of her head were smooth, covered by long thick fur that resembled bushy sideburns. Though her face was otherwise human, the tall triangular cat ears on top of her head were the clearest indicator of her species. Also on top of her head was a long stripe of human hair that hung over her fur to give her a more human looking mop of long black hair that stretched down to her shoulders. that stripe of cat fur that formed a thick undercoat that stretched in a thin line down her back all the way to her tail, which was basically just a normal black cat tail with a cute tuff of white hair at the end. The tail swished back and forth nervously, but she did not complain at being pushed.

All in all, she was a very cute ten year old girl, who, if you discounted the ears and tail, would have appeared fully human. Her nose was small and adorable as a button, her green cat slitted eyes were large and bright. Despite the abuse she suffered, she was buoyed by a naturally bright spirit that was only partly dimmed by her circumstances, and a love of dragons. Since her job was to care for dragons, if she simply ignored the heavy iron collar around her neck that marked her as a slave, and the cruelty of the stablemaster, she could focus on caring for dragons. That love of dragons gave her a rare passion that made her well suited for her job. Even Blake was careful not to permanently harm her, since he recognized that of the various stableboys, free and enslave, that he had at his disposal, she was the best. That is why he had chosen her, after all.

“Yes, master Blake,” Karla said politely, rushing forward to sit by the dragon, then hesitated, unsure what to do about the duke’s son who was standing next to the sitting dragon and scratching him vigorously. The dragon turned its attention to the cat girl and regarded her calmly with his intelligent eyes.

The nameless dragon was looking at her face because he saw that she was a cat girl, this was somehow puzzling and strange to him. Idea muttered in excitement, Idea wondered out loud, inside the confines of the dragon’s brain, where only the dragon could hear.

The dragon ignored the voice and simply focused on sniffing the girl as much possible without disrupting the attention Eric was lavishing on him. Under Idea’s control, the raspy dragon tongue probed the girl as she drew into range, tearing free a bit of dead skin to examine.

Idea announced triumphantly. Idea set a few nanobots at work sequencing the DNA, though given his limited power reserves, it might take a while.

Karla giggled slightly as the dragon licked her arm, surprised at what she interpreted as a very cat like show of affection. Eric smiled at the girl, thinking she was quite cute for a girl, especially when she giggled like that.

“Go ahead,” Eric said encouragingly to Karla, he knew she was a slave, but seeing her as just a girl his own age, he felt a tiny bit of kinship and kindness. She had a scary job, caring for dragons, and he understood that fear, plus, he sensed in her a desire to care for this unique black dragon, a desire that he himself felt, so he made an effort to be nice, despite the vast gulf in status between them. He backed away from the dragon to let the poor slave girl do her job without making her nervous with his presence.

“What do you think?” The Duke asked Leonard.

Frowning, Leonard raised his hand and cast a detailed appraisal spell on the dragon, not just examining it’s health, which was good, but also checking for any possible magical contaminants, diseases or risks. So far as he could tell, this dragon was perfectly normal, though there was something… a sort of static feeling, like something inside the dragon was disrupting the flow of magic from his spell and distorting the spell.

There was more metal in the dragon than should be normal? Leonard asked himself. Foriegn metal objects embedded inside flesh sometimes gave a similar feel, and the black metallic scales in particular had a very odd feel to them. He sensed electrical energy inside them, reacting to the light? There was more electricity on the side facing the open windows, as if the sunlight was being converted somehow.

Leonard hesitated before replying, “There is something odd about that dragon, more than just the obvious, but nothing magic. I can’t feel anything risky like a curse or any sort of magic disease. It should be safe, though perhaps we should keep a careful watch over that dragon.”

“It needs a name,” Eric said thoughtfully, his natural confidence as a noble’s son giving him the courage to insert himself into the conversations of his elders. This was encouraged of course, a nobleman, even as a child, had to be listened to by any commoners. It was expected that the duke’s heir would be able to express himself and impose his will even at a tender age. This tended to create very spoiled nobles who often behaved like children into their adulthood, but the Duke and his closest advisors, namely Able and Leonard, were quick to reprimand inappropriate behavior and Eric had developed into a well adjusted, well behaved boy.

“Go on son,” The Duke said encouragingly, “It is your dragon.”

Eric nodded soberly, as he watched Karla carefully oil and rub the nameless black dragon with warm towels. The dragon looked blissful, and it accepted Karla’s enthusiastic gentle care with an almost regal attitude. There was something almost cat-like in the way it behaved, accepting attention as if it was his due, regally and patiently allowing itself to be cared for. The dainty way it had eaten its food had also seemed almost noble, and Eric had been impressed that it had seemed to know its own reflection and had even washed its hands. It seemed a much nobler dragon than the savage beasts that stirred restlessly in the nearby stalls.

“I shall call him Rex,” Eric announced. “Because it is a noble dragon, and he acts like a king or maybe a cat,” he added.

This drew amused chuckles from a few of those listening, but the Duke nodded slowly. “Yes, it is quite well behaved, much like you, son. The name suits him well, and Rex shall also suit you well. If it stays well behaved and keeps its unique coloration, I suspect you will be the envy of your peers when you attend your dragon rider training classes.”

Nobles in the empire of Tralnar were all dragon riders, bonded to their dragons from an early age. They formed the core of the empire’s military might when their dragons became fully grown, but as youths, they also attended an academy together, where in addition to their ordinary classes, they were taught how to ride dragons. Eric would attend those classes in a few years, and he had been given this dragon now so that it would be mature enough when the time came.

Karla had a different reaction to Eric’s statement. Catlike? She wondered, like me? Karla had never had much chance to play with cats, there were a few of them inside the mansion proper, pampered creatures who occasionally took it upon themselves to hunt rodents.

To hear that her dragon was “catlike” increased her feeling of kinship. The small gentle head butt that Rex gave her to remind her to keep oiling those rough patches also made him seem more cat like. Karla immediately resumed her task with renewed vigor. She could hardly keep his majesty, Rex the king of dragons, waiting she thought to herself with amusement. This dragon was so much nicer than the others, who merely tolerated her. Rex seemed to genuinely appreciate the attention she was lavishing on him.