Archos and Ayente took their time about departure in the morning. She was worn out from hours of practice, and so when it finally came time to depart, Archos looked down at her and said, “You wish to ride…? You have worked hard. Get on, sleep. I will not sleep.”

Ayente didn’t argue, she took a strip of fenrisu fur, bound the fenrisu pup, and curled up with it on the magically preserved bodies of their kills. The peeking orange of the distant sun felt warm to her, an indication of the turning season. Around her leaves began to curl out as if to grasp the sun, unrolling like the unfurling of carried furs about to be put to use. The faint music of birds began as they awoke and told the world as much.

She yawned and stretched, then curled inward again and the equally weary pup, set somewhat at ease by the comfort of the fur of its own kind, also fell asleep.

For the better part of the day he pulled, out of the woods, over the hills and grass while behind him, he heard the loud yawn and the rustling motion of her sleepy stretching. The little growling of the small fenrisu pup beside her told him that they had awakened at nearly the same moment. ‘Likely one woke the other, I wonder which will be more annoyed about it?’ He managed to keep any laughter to himself, and simply stopped.

“Good, you are awake, first you eat, then you practice.” Archos said and took up the thigh bone of Fen’Maki. He held it out to her and she took it with some reticence.

“There is one thing that troubles me.” She said as she held it in her grip and rested the end on her other open palm. She stared down at it and then raised her eyes to his. “Most of my tribe, they use ax or spear, but this is more like a club. Yet you do not treat it as a club. You treat it like your weapon, but it is not.”

Archos reached down and cut a sliver of meat away from a fenrisu corpse and tossed it into his mouth. As the savory meat began to dissolve, he tilted his head back and let it slide down his throat. He then looked at her again. “That is something you will have to fix then, isn’t it.” He asked in a simple sort of tone while cutting another slice away.

‘Now… I wonder, will she prove to be as clever as I’ve come to think she is? No forges, no iron, no bronze. Not that I know of. This whole world… I have to reevaluate everything. Are even the rocks the same as home? Some yes, but how about others? I must know more.’ He lost himself in his thoughts while cutting a strip of meat, and lost himself so thoroughly that he almost missed it.

Ayente had taken to turning the bone over in her hand, her brow furrowed and eyes focused, until the little pup pounced on the bone and bit down on it. As he started to pull, Ayente’s eyes lit up, “I have it!” Her smile spread broadly over her face and she snatched up the little pup and held the little furry wiggling beast aloft. “Wonderful, little one. But I should give you a name so I can thank you properly!” She let herself lie back on the fur of the dead and held him still struggling over her. “Little fur? No… no you will grow. How about… Biter? No, Fen’Biter. As you have bitten the bones and flesh of your own kind. Yes. That is your name.”

She sat up and held it in her lap, Archos cut a strip of meat and tossed it to her, and she held it out to the little fenrisu pup. It ravenously wolfed down the flesh it was given, then two more long strips besides. Sated for the moment, it curled up and simply watched them.

Archos cut another strip and looked around, there was little to burn but grass. “Your kind doesn’t normally eat meat raw, does it, not unless you must?”

Ayente shook her head but looked at the strip hungrily with focused eyes.

“If I were old enough to expel fire, I would do that, but as it is, this may cook it unevenly, but it will have to do.” He half muttered in mild annoyance, then held his free hand out. [Flame] He uttered the spell, then a few finger widths in front of his scaled palm, a small gout of flame sprang out and kissed the flesh.

Ayente watched this with pursed lips, “We cannot do that. How do you do that?”

While Archos held the meat between two talons and cooked it with the small flame, he tried to think of a way to answer her. The scales above his eyes furrowed ever so slightly. “Magic is… well, I see your people use magic. You took water from mud after shaping it to make my hut.”

“Yes, we take from a thing to make it something else. But there is nothing to take from fire. I have seen you make sparks, but this is not the same. How?” She asked as she pointed to the flowing fire. Her sky blue eyes lit up like the sun, she could not turn away nor even wish to.

Archos’s long, thin lips curled slightly back, “This is one of the things I like of you Ayente. You ask what others seem not to think to ask. Perhaps it is because few of your people will even speak to me, but I do not see a ‘how’ from them. The answer is simple. At least, for simple magics.”

“Yes?” She pushed, stretching her legs out in front of her, and then drawing them in so that she hugged her knees, she looked at him with brimming expectation, leaning forward so that her head was atop her knee, she let the trace of a smile form at the compliment.

“All things are made of things, and all things that make things, have properties to them. If you know the properties of the things that make things, you can make them do other things. More importantly, all things that interact with other things, change the things they interact with. Do you understand?” Archos asked tentatively.

Ayente cocked her head. “No, not at all. That was more, ah, lost to my knowing than I have ever been.”

Archos let out a deep chuckle, “I suppose it was. But here is an example in my talon. I use fire on the meat, I change the meat. Changing the meat, changes how the meat tastes. It is still the same meat from the same beast, but the meat tastes differently because of how it responds to the heat and the fire. So it is with all things. The greater your knowing of the world and the objects you wish to affect, the more variable the effects you can create. Does that make more sense?”

“Yes… I think. But does that mean I could make water catch fire?” She asked quizzically, scratching her head uncertainly.

Archos shook his head, “No, it cannot act against its own properties. You must change it to something else, but this can be done. Those with certain gifts can manipulate objects, by manipulating the mana within those things, to affect all those properties. But knowing is a must, I have some skill in this, but I am nothing compared to my people’s great mages. Those who were most skilled, could make deep mines… ah, caves for finding special rocks, just by walking to the stone. Skilled healers were able to regrow entire limbs, great destroyers could burst mountains from within. It is said, though I have never seen this, that the strongest of our magic users could even return the dead to life.”

Ayente stared at him in silence, “Are your people gods?” She asked with a hushed voice. ‘Have I taken the blood of a god into my body? Befriended a god? To work such wonders…’ The questions lingered, but he shook his large head in denial.

“No, we hatch, we live, we fight and die, we simply have knowledge your people do not. I have learned much in my brief life, but I have a deeper well to draw from for knowing, than your people do.” Archos explained gently as he turned the meat over and repeated the process.

For a little while Ayente simply watched him work while she turned that over in her head, idly stroking the fur of Fen’Biter and scratching behind his little ears.

“Can you teach me this also?” Ayente asked hopefully as he held the meat out to her a few minutes later. She took it in hand and began crudely tearing into the flesh, savoring the rich flavor and the feel of tearing sinew. She chewed a piece, and Fen’Biter looked up at her with a whimper.

Not without reluctance, she took the piece she was chewing on, and gave it to the beast, which happily started chewing on it.

“I can, at least the simple things. However it might be best to wait until we have settled things with your tribe. Now, take up your weapon, and come at me again.” Archos ordered and took position. Ayente wolfed down the remainder of her food, save for a few scraps she left for Fen’Biter, which lept on the tiny feast while she stood up with the long bone in hand.

“Fear is the most dangerous of enemies. But second most dangerous is false courage. Charging in to die stupidly, I have seen many a dragon make that mistake, to proud or too stupid, they rush against a multitude that they cannot hope to beat, and die.” He said as she charged in swinging, her blows were ever so slightly better, she aimed where he told her, yet he avoided her adroitly with disturbing ease.

“It’s one thing to die nobly preserving your comrades or your people.” he said as he snatched her hair and flung her onto her back. She shrieked in pain as he put the tip of his sword to her throat, “It is a very different thing to throw your life away with recklessness. Fight to win, run away when victory is impossible and death will gain nothing for the trouble.”

Ayente listened with care and repeated each lesson, snarling with rage every time she ended up on the ground, spitting up dirt and grass. “You won’t find victory down there.” Archos teased her when she got up to her knees and punched the ground with a growl of frustration at the taunt.

She came charging again with the long bone in both hands and level in front of her as if it were a spear, howling like a banshee with her eyes filled with fury.

Archos smacked the bone down with the flat of his blade, turned to one side, and cracked her in the back of the head with the flat of his sword. She stumbled and fell on her face. “Remember what I said about controlling the fight, use your anger like courage, but don’t let it control you. Passion directed is a sharp edge, passion and rage without control will only cut yourself.”

She cursed and turned on him again, stubborn determination in her eyes, “I may not win, but I can learn. I will learn. And the next time I face Makine, I will end his life.”

“Makine, I heard this name, what is he to you, to bear such hatred?” Archos asked when they finally took a break.

“He is tunka’ti kin’yit.” She answered and spat hatefully into the grass. He stared at her in answer.

Her anger stalled briefly as she tried to explain, but didn’t meet his look, she stared at the little puddle of spit in the gouged up grass and the little bit of mud she’d made in the dirt with it. “Ah, a male made you with female. Then makes another with another female. What is this to you?”

“Half siblings, he would be half brother, a she would be half sister, sharing the same father.” Archos said with dawning understanding.

“Yes, tunka’ti kin’yit is ‘my brother from father’. Makine, his father found my mother by the waters one day when she was alone. He took my mother and forced her to mate with him, took her to his tribe. She fled to her own people in the night after a season, carrying me inside her. Makine’s father… he ruined both our lives, as did Malach, I now know.” Ayente jabbed the bone down against the dirt. “My mother unmanned my father before she fled, taking his manhood and casting it into the waters from the few tellings that came our way, he lost his place in the tribe and died soon after. Makine hates my mother for that, and me as well for having sprung from them both. When my elder brother took rule of the Cave Children, I knew we would clash one day. But… till you?” She looked up to the Dragon who stood a few feet away, “My thoughts were that my dying would come. I would not let him have done what was done to my mother. Now? Now I know what I did not. When we meet again, I will kill him.” She looked off in the direction of the great mountain where the Cave Children dwelled, and her face turned red with fury.

Unable to contain it, she shouted to the open land to the distant mountain. “Do you hear, Makine?! I come for you! One day we will fight again! And I will kill you! I will cut you as my mother did our father, and take everything from you before you die!”

Her rage came through like a gale wind, and she shot to her feet. “I know we must return to my tribe, but… can we have just one more finger of the sun before we move again?” She held the bone out one handed, and Archos took position.

“One more will be fine.” The dragon replied, and again she came at him with everything she had.

Fey’Na’Ora stood in the clearing where the interlopers had laid camp the night before. She held her hands over her mouth and looked around in horrified and fascinated awe. Her long ears twitched in anxiety, “Could they have truly done this?”

Fey’Ka’El approached and looked down at her from his place at her right hand. “I see no reason to think anyone else was involved. Could that have been a real dragon though? I’ve never seen one before.” His own long, slender, pointed ears were twitching no less than her own. Fey’Na’Ora approached a large blood stained space. “Look at this.” She said to her companion, and shuddered.

Fey’Ka’El looked in her direction when she called, she was so slender that she didn’t really obscure his view, and even when the wind picked up her long golden hair and blew it in his path briefly, he couldn’t have missed it. An enormous patch of blood and entrails.

“To make this…?” Fey’Ka’El jabbed his spear into the dirt with the tip down, it was spread over a large space, “This did not bleed here, it was held aloft, and only one creature is large enough among those fenrisu for this.”

Fey’Na’Ora nodded. “Yes, Fen’Maki. That creature held up Fen’Maki and tore him apart. But how…? Fen’Maki only left our tribe alone to protect his young from our new weapon. Even our best could not pierce his hide. Yet he was torn asunder?”

Fey’Ka’El looked around, bloody spots where bodies had fallen lay all over the clearing, “They were but two, and did not have this.” He reached up to his shoulder and tapped the bow that hung there. “Creating this let us drive away Fen’Maki’s pack but, only because we are also many. Call in the others, we must know more. If that ‘was’ a true dragon, you know what will happen.”

Fey’Na’Ora gave a small nod of her slender chin and looked up at her chief, “Yes, I haven’t forgotten the story. All bend, break, and remake… it will not leave us alone. But even if it is not a true dragon, if it is simply some strange beast we have not seen before?” Fey’Na’Ora reached up and touched her chief, her lover on his bare chest, golden as the sun, slender and yet strong, she stared up into his golden eyes, “Even if it is not,” she went on, “no one who rules over such a powerful beast will be content to keep to their own lives. A new turning comes, we must be prepared. I will do as you say.”

Fey’Ka’El lowered his lips to her smooth forehead and kissed it lightly, “This is why of all the elves of the tribe, you alone are fit to be beside me. You alone see the danger of forgetting the rest of the world exists. Watching is well and good, until it isn’t. It may be time to do what we have not done since the last dragon appeared, and send a speaker to the humans. We do not want to be caught unawares a second time.”

“And what will you do, my love, while I run back to the tribe?” Fey’Na’Ora asked with a growing sense of dread in her ample breasts as she looked up into the determined stone face and his sharp golden eyes. Without thinking, fearing the answer she knew was coming, she enfolded her slender arms around him and drew him close amidst the blood soaked clearing.

“Isn’t it obvious, my precious Ora?” He asked, and lifted an arm from the embrace he had unconsciously returned and pointed in the direction of the sled tracks. “I am going to track a dragon.”