The morning was busy for Volsten. Within an hour or two of waking, he’d found rope to retie Xyra’s wings, and a bath for himself. Not everyone was an old, heartless hag in this place. It took a knock and a few knightly words, and he could clean himself to his heart’s content. A kindly husband and wife let him, with no want for gold or anything of the like. Still he left a few bronze coins, otherwise his conscious nag him for days.

His clothes would have to remain as they were. They made an offer, as was expected, but he hushed them, for he didn’t care to spend the time waiting.

Xyra stared with an unreadable face at the rope. No doubt she dreaded what was to come. For her part, she didn’t resist. She folded her wings as best she could for him, and on the tie-off, she grunted with agony, but did not scream.

Emotion only came when he brandished a robe. This was from the caravan, which still rested in town. White, hooded, and most importantly, large. Perhaps it was meant for Adamore’s less-than-temperate winters, but it now served a more noble purpose.

Even then, it was a flicker. More curious than anything, but it passed so quickly into another void of expressionless features that Volsten couldn’t be too sure it happened at all.

He pulled the thing over her head. Carefully, given that her horns could at any point rip the cloth asunder. Soon head came through its allotted hole, and he was much too close to her silent slit eyes for his comfort.

“My arms,” she said.

Volsten looked down. The sleeves were empty, which made sense, given that her arms were trapped beneath her wings.

No one would guess that she was a dragon from this, despite the odd silhouette that her tied wings gave her, but it would be best to cover them. He snatched the cloth that once bundled her up from the floor and threw it over her shoulders. Better, but it was a little long in the back and swept the ground. A cut or two solved that, and she looked like a proper creepy orphan child. Bare footed, wearing a robe over a gown that poked free near the bottom.

Next came the hood. Unlike the sleeves, Volsten expected this to be a problem. Maybe the robe was meant for a rather large son, because it slid over her horns with surprising ease. They poked a bit, but that was easily explained away as hair.

All is ready, Volsten thought, grabbing his sword from the bed. For the low price of 8 gold (originally 10, but he would have none of it), he had procured a horse from-

Knock Knock.

Volsten jumped. The Constable? No, these were light taps.

Xyra scurried to the table, her cloth covering threatening to part from her, and took a seat.

Who could this possibly be? Volsten went to the door and cracked it. Something was there, light blue and ill-fitting.

“Sir!” Sully said.

Volsten opened the door to see Sully, as happy as he’d ever seen her, two hands carrying a sack in front of her.

“S-Sully?” Volsten managed. “What are you doing here?”

“Our promise, sir.”

Inera’s ass. She believed me! Well, he knew that. He didn’t expect her to act on it. “I..you…”

“Sorry I was so late, sir,” she said, stepping closer. “We helped a buncha other people. Momma doesn’t like us to just stand around.”

“I see.”

“Can I come in with you?” She asked.

This wasn’t his first time telling a woman no. Many times, when his interest in them waned into nothing, he would look into their eyes, heavy with shadow, and delightfully tell them ‘no’. Those were noblewomen, too, more charming and beautiful than Sully. It should be easy to send her away, to lie and say that he no longer feels as he once did.

“Do your parents know of this?” He asked.

“I told you,” she said, “that I wouldn’t tell them a thing. They think I’m in the wagon right now.” Her smile was gone, and the sack she carried moved uneasily.

“You should go back to them, Sully.” Volsten made his voice even and firm.

“Sir, no!” she said. She didn’t shout it, but he knew she wanted to.

“Is this what you really want, Sully? To run away from your family with a man you barely know?”

“I do know you!” She said, placing a hand on his chest. “I…I gave myself to you. We talked a bunch. You aren’t a stranger to me.”

Volsten found himself bending under a peasant’s desperation. “A couple of weeks in a wagon isn’t the same as years spent together. You don’t know me. You don’t know that I lied about ever wanting to take you.”

Sully’s eyes dulled. Just days ago, when he was sure that this wasn’t a possibility, he’d thought about this moment. How silly it would be for a peasant girl to dare expect this of him. If she tried it, he would mock her until she ran for her wagon with tears streaming down her face. He brought that Volsten to the front.

“You don’t mean that,” she said.

“Of course I do!” Volsten’s mouth fought against his smile, but he made it. “Honestly it was quite a ridiculous thing for you to believe me, being as you are.”

Sully’s head bowed. She was as still as a windless day.

“Oh, don’t feel too downtrodden! Most peasantry doesn’t get this far in the first place, so you have that.”

“It meant nothing, then?” She spoke small and wispy. “When we…were together…”

“Not a thing, to be honest,” Volsten laughed. “Some fun on a long trip. It was fun, don’t you think?”

Sully lifted her head. Through the tangle of black hair, he saw tears, and the same red-faced anger that she so often directed at her brothers. There was no yelling. She started to stomp off down the hall, but he caught her arm. She was near sobbing when she turned to look at him.

“Wait,” he said. “Take this.” As if it was someone else, a hand reached deep into his pouch and grabbed a crown-no, two crowns, and drug them like teeth into the open.

His grip went to Sully’s hand, which opened like a rough flower.

Sully’s eyes widened as he dropped the white coins, first one and then the other. She waited a long time to close her hand. Volsten was considering taking the crowns back. Instead, he was the one to close it. Now she sobbed in earnest and wrapped herself around him in a tight hug.

Then, she was gone.

Volsten stepped back and closed the door. He ran a hand through his hair and left it there for a moment. When he turned, Xyra waited on him. Rather, her eyes did. She watched him from beneath the hood, which did a wonderful job to mask her true self. Only, it made her eyes even more striking than they already were.

“What?” Volsten asked, expecting no answer.

That face was the same as it had been all morning: blank. She offered no words, and soon turned to face the gray of the window.

*

Nothing untoward happened upon their departure from Ostic. Volsten wasn’t a pious man, but he thanked Inera for that. There was no reason for anyone to concern themselves with his business, but the Constable sat out front of his building when he first led Xyra from the inn. Slow walking was that, through mud. He wondered how Xyra felt with barefeet, but she didn’t make any discomfort known. Not that he would’ve cared anyway.

A few times the Constable looked in their direction. He made no moves, shouted no words, but he did linger on them. Precious little he could do to a knight, but Volsten wanted nothing of the hassle. He helped Xyra mount the horse as quickly as he could, feeling eyes that he told himself were phantom.

He swung over behind her, and soon they had left Ostic.

“So, what did you think of one of our great towns?” He asked when they were away from Ostic. They were moving deeper into Redcrest, the vast expanse of woods that surrounded many a lonely village in Adamore.

“It’s different…but interesting.” Unlike him, Xyra didn’t need to raise her voice much to be heard over the galloping of a horse.

“You don’t have to be so kind. It’s a dirty mess. Unwashed peasants, free animals and the like. Surely it pales in comparison to the great wonders of Val Eneyas?”

“Well, our land is pretty magnificent, if I do say so myself.” Was that pride he heard? “We don’t have buildings, though. Not like you do.”

“What do you have, then?’

Xyra shifted. Riding with no arms to balance, even with him steadying her, must be uncomfortable. “We have very large trees. We build dens in those.”

“So you all live in trees?”

“Caves, mountains, too. We live anywhere we can.”

The wind from the gallop blew Xyra’s hood off. Shiny white clouded Volsten’s vision.

“This feels nice, at least.”

Volsten strained to see beyond her hair. “Just hope no one passes us before we stop to camp.”

“I hope not,” Xyra said. “That’d cause trouble, and I don’t like trouble.”

*

The sun had long since fallen. The darkness was slow yet sudden, taking its time to creep through the trees, yet, once noticed, crashing down all at once, a black wall through which nothing could be seen, except in the narrowness of the road, where the moon was fit to rule.

Volsten brought the horse to a stop. The moon showed him a clearing near his left, just before its power was swallowed by the depths of the woods.

“This looks good,” Volsten said, hopping from the horse.

“We’re resting here?” Xyra asked. Still her hair was free and wonderful.

“Yes.” Volsten wrapped his arm around Xyra’s hips and lifted her, then settled her on the ground.

“Thank you, Volsten sir,” she said, smiling towards him.

It was the first time he’d seen her do anything but sulk. She’d become more comfortable with him, more at ease, he guessed. That just wouldn’t do.

He threw her to the ground. She crashed with force enough to rid her of the cloth on her back.

“You forget that you’re a prisoner, my lady dragon.”

Xyra groaned, sitting up as best she could with no arms to help her. A pained huff sent thick smoke from her mouth.

Volsten grabbed her by the robe and pulled her to stand. “You’ve got a fire to start.” He released her and walked the fretful horse to a nearby tree, where he tied it.

He turned to see Xyra sitting in the clearing, staring at the grass beneath her. “Why do you do this to me?” she asked.

There was no need to answer. Volsten unsheathed his blade and hacked away at low-lying branches, collecting them as they fell, then throwing them at Xyra’s feet. His sword was meant for more glorious things than this, but he had nothing else for the task.

“Am I just a tool for you?” she continued.

Volsten sighed inwardly. Finished with his collecting, he stood over the pile of wood. “Start the fire.”

“Why can’t you?” Xyra whined.

“I could,” Volsten said, “but I imagine that you’d have a much easier time.”

“I’m…a water dragon.”

“Of course you are. Start the damn fire, Xyra!”

“Fine!” She inhaled before expelling a cloud of smoke from her nose. After a moment, her mouth opened, and a gorgeous orange light overtook the darkness. It was a small, directed stream, but it was powerful and precise as it fell upon the wood. Volsten could do nothing but stare as this small, beautiful thing displayed its power. She could kill me in seconds.

Xyra finished. Released from her fiery trance, Volsten again went to the horse. Before leaving Ostic, he had secured a few choice things for the journey, and set them in a sack on the horse’s flank. Blankets and food, mostly. A few dried fish were wrapped in cloth, but that wasn’t all he brought. There were apples and a couple of potatoes as well. These were for Xyra, but he hadn’t told her. She’d taken no more than a single bite of the chicken at the inn, and the last thing he needed was for her to starve.

He took one of the blankets, an apple, and unwrapped one of the dried fish. Stretching the blanket out, he lay down on it, staring into the sky’s star-filled blackness. “Xyra.”

“Y-Yes?”

“What are your parents like?”

Xyra said nothing. That was beginning to become an annoying habit.

“You sulk at every little transgression like a spoiled child.” He threw the apple at her. It hit her in the face. Oh, right. The arms.

Just as he contemplated freeing her to eat, her arms emerged from the robe’s sleeves.

“How long?” he asked.

“Since you were speaking to her.”

Volsten groaned.

“My parents,” Xyra said, “are…strict. Peaceful, like me, but they do kill to eat. They think I’m odd.”

“You are,” Volsten said. He turned to his side, facing Xyra. “Say, how did you end up this far in Adamore?”

“Well, after I escaped, I ran on foot for a while. I didn’t know where I was going, but I tried to stay hidden. I was lost, simply.” Xyra had already finished the apple. She set the remains next to her, gentle as a mother with a child.

“Who were these people? Other dragons?”

Xyra’s eyes narrowed. “No. I don’t think so. They were tall, with black masks.”

Tall. Black masks. “Do you know exactly where you were?”

“On the edge of our domain.” Her voice grew small. “The moonberries grow best there.”

“Given all of that, are you sure they weren’t elves?”

Xyra stiffened.

“I bet that’s it,” he continued. “Wanted you for some nefarious purpose, I presume.”

“They…whispered about a city in black.”

“Issha,” Volsten nodded. It was hard to forget the years of texts drilled into his mind about that place. The Sacreds had much to say about dragons, too, and pretty much anything outside of Adamore. “Heart of Malice.”

“They spoke of a queen…they picked at my scales, and they hit me over and over…” She stared at the fire, or beyond it.

Volsten started on his fish. By the look of her, no words would reach.

“So…I threw up fire. I didn’t want to, but…they wouldn’t stop. Bodies…I didn’t see. I hope they didn’t burn, Volsten!” Short, smoky breaths, rising ever higher into the sky.

Silence.

“I see your apple is finished,” Volsten ventured. “Fish?”

Xyra shook her head. That damned hood still wasn’t on.

“Suit yourself,” Volsten said, taking another bite. “You know, I feel kind of bad for you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You can’t enjoy the wonderful taste of smoked fish.”

“I’d prefer strawberries and melons,” she said. There was a small smile there.

Volsten sighed. “Whatever you say, Xyra the Fruit Dragon.”

“Fruit Dragon?” Xyra said the words aloud several times. “I like that name.”

“Of all the dragons to stumble across, I manage to find the most boring one possible.” Volsten relieved himself of his sword.

“If it were any other dragon, there might have been a fight between you…”

“At least it would have been fun,” Volsten yawned.

“What a mean person you are…”

“Mean?” He shot Xyra a look. “You should be thankful that I didn’t run my sword through you.”

“I am,” she said with a flinch, “but why can’t you be kind to me?”

“I don’t like you!” Volsten gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Why would I be kind to you?”

Xyra soaked in the fire for a few quiet moments. “Do you know where I can find a map?”

“You’re not getting a map.”

“Are there maps where we’re going?” Xyra pressed.

“No.”

“Do you know magic?”

Bloody annoying thing! “What’s it to you?” Volsten said. “Do you know magic?”

“Possibly…” she almost whispered.

Volsten faced away from her. “Sleep, dragon, and when we awake, that hood best be on your head.”

*

A veritable symphony of birdsong roused Volsten from his slumber. Dawn-light just peered through the trees. The sky’s blue was still in its infancy, not yet the wondrous deep of full day.

Volsten stretched. The ground is an awful thing to sleep on. He reached out for his sword. As his fingers touched the sheath, slick with morning dew, a booted foot stepped on his arm. Silver flashed, and his eyes focused on the blade now pointed at his face.

A rough, but distinctly feminine voice spoke: “Lirem, sir. You’re in my woods. How can I help ya?"