“It’s the dragon way,” Caronerax states. “He tried to bite me. Did I mention that less clinging would be better? Ah, good.”
I readjust my grip on him. As far as I can tell, he can float well enough to keep both of us up. But if he can’t swim, then he needs a flash lesson.
“Try to lie back,” I instruct as respectfully as I can, my teeth starting to clatter. “Let the water hold you up.”
“If other dragons saw me now, they’d all die from laughter, and I would die from shame, sinking into this sewer on purpose,” he hisses.”It would be a mass extinction event!”
But he follows my instructions and lies back. At least half of him is above the surface, and I can’t escape the notion that he kind of looks like a raft. A gorgeous man-shaped raft with spikes and scales and a furious temper. If he were inflatable, he would be a bestseller at Walmart.
I cling to him as hard as necessary, but without encumbering him. “Good. Now try to use your arms to propel yourself— ow! That was my face. Try the water instead. Yes, like that. Now the other arm in the same way. The same way. The same way please, notice how you’re only spinning in place— yes, like that. Keep doing it, first one arm, then the other. No need to splash so much, try to move calmly.”
It takes me a while, but finally he’s doing a fair impersonation of the backstroke while I cling to the hemline of his pants, being dragged along. The water keeps cooling me down, and the only good thing about it is that it dulls the pain from my lacerated shoulders.
As Caronerax gets the hang of it, we’re making pretty good speed through the water. I try to steer by gently suggesting he use one or the other arms more than the other, so at least we’re going roughly south.
When we finally scrape up on a gravelly beach, he’s become quite an effective raft and engine. And I’m chilled so badly I start to worry about dying from hypothermia.
“Can you,” I manage through stiff lips as I crawl onto dry land, “still breathe fire?”
He casually gets up and strolls up on the beach. “No.”
“Can you change to your d-d-dragon form and d-d-do it?”
He pushes soaked hair out of his eyes. “Always so many questions.”
“Oh. It’s just, I’m really c-c-cold.” The shore is a lot like the other ones, a gravel beach with pine woods right behind it.
Caronerax casually turns on his heel and looks down on me. “You look terrible. But your lips have a more classy color now. Nice and blue.”
I get up on my knees, noting the dull pain in my shoulders. Looking at the wounds, they’re not quite as bad as I feared. The dactyl’s talons pierced me, but not that deep. Most of the lifting force came from the one claw that was under my arms. “I f-f-feel terrible.”
“And you need something now, I’m sure. Fire, is it?”
I try to wring out the bottom part of my dress, but the material is stiff and not all that wring-able. Also, my fingers are numb and powerless from cold. “Fire would b-b-be nice and m-m-might save my life. I would need it f-f-for the heat it gives off.”
“I see,” the dragon grunts.
When I look up again, he’s gone.
All right. I guess there’s not much more he can do. If he can’t breathe fire, then I’m left to myself.
With trembling fingers, I check that I still have the pouch around my neck. I can make fire myself, using Dolly’s matches. If they work when wet. As a last resort, I supposed I can do the stick-rubbing method.
I’ll have to gather firewood first, of course. And I have to do it right away before I give in to the strong urge to lie down on the gravel and take a breather. I think that would be the last thing I’d ever do.
I crawl off the beach and onto the dry grass. The sun is rising and giving off a decent amount of heat, but not nearly enough to thaw me.
Of course, the rays can’t really heat me up while I’m wearing this soaked dress, which feels like a shroud of ice. I slowly pull it over my head and dump it on the ground with a dull splat. Modesty has to take a backseat to staying