The branch swayed in the hot volcanic breeze, rocking her to sleep.
Chapter 3: Storm
FLICKER TENDED THE unconscious female flat-face for two more days before heading underground to consult with the Ancient One. He returned with a head buzzing with ideas and new words.
Girl, he said to himself. Human girl. Um … “Girl.”
By his wings, that speech-pattern offended the throat! This was how they talked? According to the Ancient fire-breather, Humans talked only with the sounds of their mouths, just as he could produce Dragonish vocally if needed. Clearly, their brains were severely underdeveloped in comparison to a dragonet’s–or a Lesser Dragon’s.
The old one had said, Thou art possessed of the gift of understanding, little one. Learn to use it well.
He did not enjoy being lectured.
Flicker’s flight muscles were recovered enough that he could test them gingerly for short stretches in the caves and tunnels that riddled Ha’athior’s underbelly, but when he returned to the tree, he dug his claws into the bark and walked across to the place where he had left the unsightly thing–the girl.
To Flicker’s surprise, he found her awake, sitting up on a thicker part of the branch as she bit into a purple prekki fruit with evident relish. Juice dripped from her chin. She had used the metal shard to assist her talon-less digits, so that she could peel the fruit and eat the inside. Well, these Human creatures were quite adept with tools, he had observed, using them to supplement the disadvantages of their pathetic paws.
“Oh, you’re back,” she greeted him, showing her undersized fangs.
“Girl,” he announced, rather grandly.
“What? Did you just say ‘girl’? Aye, that’s right.”
Flicker struck a pose that displayed his gleaming scales to best advantage. He had just bathed in a waterfall. Aren’t I clever?
“Lia,” she said, tapping her chest.
“Leeeeee-ya,” he parroted back. Was this monkey-chatter supposed to convey meaning? How droll. Well, he would learn this simple speech in a few days.
“Very good! Lia. You’re smart for a dragonet. What’s your name?”
Now she was pointing at him? Yes, I know lots about Humans, he said. The Ancient One told me everything I need to know. How’s the fruit? Good?
She lobbed the pip to the winds. “I’m Lia. You are?”
Hungry, he said, tucking into a piece of the fruit he had collected. Just then, a sharp tang entered his nostrils. Flicker raised his muzzle at once, testing the air. There’s a storm coming.
She did not seem to understand. Doing that crinkling routine with her eyes and tossing the pale straw on her head, the girl gazed at him. Flicker did not understand either. His belly-fires churned pleasurably beneath her scrutiny, and his talons curled with bewildering happiness. She was patently pleased with his reappearance. And why not? He was a handsome specimen of a dragonet, and terrifically knowledgeable about her kind. Perhaps now was the moment to impress her with his second word.
“Hooo-min,” he said, delicately pointing a talon at her.
Oh, what joy! Her pale skin flushed with delight and her laugher trilled forth–and laughter was an emotional response dragonets understood. Never mind that she clutched her stomach and groaned right away. Flicker gave her a fine rendition of a dragonet’s belly-laugh. More laughter!
“Ooh, don’t do that,” whispered the girl, nursing her wound.
Her eyes rested gently upon him, gleaming with a quality he wanted to suggest was Dragon fire, but was not. All he knew was the warmth her regard kindled in him, and that this feeling must do something to her fires too, because her face reddened into a fine semblance of a dawn sky. Growing chary at his scrutiny, the girl’s eyes slid aside as coyly as a female dragonet eyeing up an attractive male.
Flicker licked his paws, cleaning them with catlike fastidiousness.
Just then, the wind rose to buffet their branch.
Her eyes visited the southern horizon with palpable trepidation. The mid-morning sky out there had turned a deep, coppery green, as though the Cloudlands had swelled to assault Iridith’s enormous, sallow dome in the form of dark, Dragon’s-head storm clouds. A flight of windrocs rushed toward them from the south. High above, a Dragonwing returning from the direction of Yaya Loop Cluster made a terrific speed of over twenty-five leagues per hour, just specks in the sky at their height, but the way her pupils focussed, the dragonet knew she had noted their haste.
Really? She was less of an idiot than he had supposed. Truth be told, that word did not seem to apply