six salen fruits on the ground in front of me. “Or maybe that’s just you.”
“No,” I lazily protest, “it’s you. All contrast. Have you seen your yellow stripes on the blue scales? You’re like a lesson in contrast. All sour and hair-pulling one moment, then sweet and fruit-picking the next— aiiee!”
Without warning, the dragon bends down and brings his face right up to mine, while he grabs my upper arms and hold them tightly.
For three heartbeats, he stares into me with those two different eyes.
“Did you call me sweet?” he growls between clenched teeth.
“No,” I squeak. “It wasn’t me.” It’s the best I can do. My heart rate is going crazy. Shit, did I really anger him?
“Oh,” Caronerax says and lets my arms go. “I was hoping it was you. I have never been called sweet before. If it were you, it would have made me happy, and I would have rewarded you.”
His face breaks out into a tight little smile, and he gives me peck on the lips before he straightens.
I breathe out. “Oh my. You can be extremely intense, you know that?”
“I know I could be. Before the injury. Now I feel like I want to test my powers of terror all the time.”
I stand up and look around for my dress. “Next time, test them on someone else, please. And now I think about it, it was me who said you were sweet. What is my reward?”
“Your reward is that you may attempt to fix the rip in my pants while I gather your green plants for the paste. And I imagine you will want firewood tonight as well?” He walks in among the fruit trees without waiting for my reply, his round, powerful butt flexing so perfectly that the sight of it sends a hot surge through me.
My dress is a sad, wet splat on the rocks. I hang it on a bush, deciding that being naked is pretty pleasant. Nobody can come here, anyway, except by air.
I throw a glance up to the sky. No dactyls.
And no dragons. I would have expected Mia and Eleanor to persuade their husbands to fly some search patrols and try to find me. They have some idea where I might be — my guess that I am pretty much straight north of the village so far seems to be pretty much spot on. But I haven’t seen so much as a scale of any other dragon than Caronerax. I have trouble seeing that as anything other than a bad sign. The messenger spidermonkey may not yet have had time to return there, but it feels like he should have. If so, perhaps the siege is going so badly for the girls that they simply can’t spare a single dragon.
No, I won’t worry. Not right now.
I wander over to a cluster of trees bearing nuts, a pretty familiar one from the village. In fact, now that I look closer, all these trees and bushes are known to me from before. Except that cherry-like thing with the big and interesting seed inside.
I pick a handful of them and suck the pits dry, then deposit them in my neck pouch. It’s probably nothing at all like what I think it might be, but it’s worth a shot. In case I’m on to something.
And it’s getting warmer. I wonder if we’re in fact quite a lot closer to the jungle than I had feared.
I find myself grinning for no particular reason. It’s just that I feel better now than at any point since I came to Xren. And that’s because of the freaking dragon.
I gather some nuts and fruits and berries for the rest of the voyage, making sure to leave enough behind for Marshie, if she ever brings a date here. Not sure how she would enjoy this island herself, but if it’s a paradise island to me, then it might be at least pleasant to her. I guess I will never know.
I’ve had an idea about how I can walk easier in the mud, so I break off supple twigs and saplings as raw material and sit down on the fur with my legs crossed, take my little knife out of the pouch around my neck, and start working, concentrating.
And humming, I notice after a couple seconds. All right, I guess I’m content right now, and I will absolutely preserve that feeling for as long as I can. It’s a really appropriate song, too.