be filled to the rafters with gold. That illusion was shattered soon after the other dragons arrived here, I’ve been told.”
I stare into the fire. “Before that, even. The last survivor brought nothing that dragons would value. Except herself, but she died before the dragons arrived.”
Caronerax stretches his long legs. “Right. After we looted their planet, some of us got immensely rich and amassed legendary hoards. Especially our king. But to his dismay, almost all the other dragons left in pursuit of the Inferiors. He was deeply suspicious about what happened to them. He had to know if they would be a threat to him, setting up a rival power. Those things happen a lot with us. And of course, a king without a people to rule isn’t much of a monarch. He sent me to find out whatever I could.”
The fire crackles pleasantly and the smoke drifts straight up, not into our faces like usual.
“You brought a part of your hoard so you wouldn’t need to find one here,” I continue. “Your cache, as you call it. Did you bury it?”
He chuckles. “Many other dragons would have killed you right now for asking that question. It’s not wise to be too curious about the hoard of a dragon and where it might be found.”
“Oh. Sorry, I was only thinking out loud.”
His teeth glint in the light from the fire, but the smile is chilly. “Try to think less about my cache, little Jennifer. Yes, the cache sustains me fine. I am the only dragon on this planet at my full strength, apart from Kyandros and Aragadon, the two in your village. I’m not surprised that they two have done the best. They are both extraordinarily sly and mighty.”
There’s another sharp crack from the woods, and I scoot an inch closer to Caronerax. “So you came here and discovered your missing dragons. Then what?”
12
- Caronerax -
It is a question I have pondered, myself. Of course, after I arrived here, I immediately realized there was nothing of value on this rock. Still, I remained for some days, spying on the other dragons and taking considerable joy in their pitiful plight, caught here hoard-less and getting weaker by the day. After the long flight through the Void, I needed to soar again, to fly above a planet and feel my superiority, enjoying the air rushing past me, the knowledge that any of the creatures here are beneath. So I did, enjoying myself for a while.
Then I started to plan how I could turn the whole situation into something extremely beneficial to myself, something that would set the course for the dragon kingdom for a long, long time.
But before I could work out the kinks in that plan, I felt something big was coming. And it was.
“Then I wandered into your village from sheer curiosity about how my dragon compatriots would handle a battle in their human form. Quite badly, as I suspected.”
“And then you took me with you,” Jennifer says in her clear, bright voice. “I mean, after I shot you. You haven’t really told me why you did that.”
I have pondered it. At the time, it seemed such an obvious thing to do. A ridiculously female creature shot me, and my first impulse was to rip her apart on the spot. She stood there for a split second with her gun in her hand, its wide barrel ripped and curled and broken. Then she fainted and I caught her, I started to feel something new and unpleasant in my chest, I reflexively Changed to dragon form and I took off with her. I flew the whole way with my dragon manhood at full, twitching mast, thinking of the ways I would punish the little female creature.
And then I didn’t do that.
I look away. “That’s right, I haven’t.”
Jennifer reaches out a small hand and puts in on my knee. “I wonder, if— I mean, when we get back. When you get your cache and regain your strength and I get back to my friends. Would you be willing to help us? I think they’re in trouble. They’re under siege, apparently. By dragons.”
The pale little hand stays on my leg, pleasantly warm through the fabric of my pants. For some reason, I think this is the bravest thing I’ve seen her do.
“Don’t they already have two dragons to help them? The only two dragons in dragon form, apart from me? They should have little trouble with the others.”