Hualiama summoned rage and grief to her aid. Grief over the parents she had never known. Rage at the wrongs she had suffered.
When that was spent, still she crawled onward, until she reached the place where the secondary branches split off.
She rested.
* * * *
Wake up! Flicker shook the girl’s shoulder.
Nothing.
He patted her cheek with his paw.
Nothing, not even a flicker of those odd filaments above her strange, powerful eyes.
Congratulating himself on his audacity, Flicker pinched the skin of her arm with his talons.
Less than nothing.
The dragonet sank his fangs into her finger.
Jerking upright, she screeched, “You wretched dollop of flying monkey–oh.” Shaking her hand, Lia smiled grimly at the dragonet. “You’ll pay for that later. Thank you.”
Stupid straw-head, get moving before I have to bite you again.
To his consternation, the Human girl seemed amused rather than annoyed by his flame-curling ire. She began to move again. How she must rue not having wings and claws like him, Flicker imagined. Flat-face used the piece of metal to pull herself along, stabbing it into the bark, pulling her injured body along as though it weighed as much as a boulder, leaving a crimson smear where she passed. Despite the pain so clearly etched on her face, the girl struggled on and on … and, to his disbelief, further still.
This was courage! Flicker’s throat constricted; he rubbed his muzzle with his paws. She honoured the gift of life in ways his family would have spent hours crafting verses to praise, adding her deeds to the songs that told the dragonet histories. Were these Human creatures truly capable of such elevated behaviour? She was as brave as any Dragon. He had to discuss this with the Ancient One. He would be fascinated, too.
Flicker fell to encouraging her. Come on, straw-head. One paw more. Over this difficult bit, you barbarously ugly beast–here, this is the place for your paw.
The first fat droplet of rain splashed his scales. The dragonet shuddered. She had to move faster! Oh, here she came, covering a whole ten feet before collapsing. No, another wrenching movement of the arm.
He yelled at her, Come on, use your soul-fires! The fires, Human girl!
She was groaning now, not the sounds she had made before, but the wordless cries of a soul in agony. Her lungs made a peculiar whistling noise at each breath. Rain splattered them again. The wind knocked the branch so hard that she slewed and had to rely on the knife to keep from sliding over the edge.
Flicker shoved her from behind. Here, push against my head. Use your magic, you idiotic slab of–oh, do you have any magic? Aye, her strength was magic. The dragonet had never seen its equal, and it brought a weird, fuzzy sensation to his mind. With each movement along the slick branch, the Human girl seemed to grow conversely stronger, as if her heart had simply assumed the function of muscle and bone and refused to let up, to cramp or to let go; as though the pain mattered, but only to refine and fuel her supreme effort; making him fancy that the spirit of the Ancient One indwelled her frail form, a spirit of fire and magic, indomitable.
The rain and wind drove in, drawing a shroud of darkness over the Island-World. The dragonet had to cling to the branch with every talon of his four paws. The girl kept moving. Foot by foot, she gained ground. The water sluiced over her wounds and plastered her head-straw to the massive cut on her back, through which he saw muscle and even naked bone, but the girl did not yield.
Thunder punched his body. Multiple strikes of branch lightning cracked about them as the storm’s full fury struck, as if it were an elemental Dragon taken form to drag dragonet and Human to their doom. Flicker found himself in front of the girl, hauling her along by the very pale straw which had so captured his imagination–and his insults–as they neared their goal, solid ground. Where it established a root-grip on the Island the ancient trunk was deeply lightning-split, a fracture of the branch away from the main trunk at a time aeons past, and it was to this split that the girl dragged herself, and collapsed insensate.
Flicker pulled himself over her head, spread his wings to provide what protection he could, and squeezed his eyes shut. He must endure the storm.
* * * *
Hualiama woke with a song in her heart and laughter