the heart muscles atrophy, because for a creature the size of a Dragon to fly requires an extraordinary output of energy, despite the efficiency of our triple-heart cardiovascular system. Furthermore, we have additional bodily organs which store energy and nutrients essential to flight, magic, brain function and so on–organs which Humans do not possess. These take time to replenish.”
“I’d love to learn all that you have to teach me,” she said.
“Thankfully, the body heals itself rapidly,” he said, less testily. “I need to hunt. What can I bring you–a spiral horn deer? Wild sheep?”
“I’d have a bit of anything. I’m starving.”
“No sneaking off while I’m gone.”
Snarky Dragon. But Lia burst out laughing when he strutted in to drop an entire haunch of ralti sheep at her feet, an hour later. He looked so pleased with himself. At her best guess, the slab of meat also weighed double her entire body mass.
“Hungry?” he sketched a graceful bow and lost his balance slightly. His muzzle butted her shoulder.
Lia staggered. “Oof, there’s no need to flatten me!”
Grandion held out an apologetic paw. “Paw up?”
Lia gripped his talon and bounded to her feet, making the Dragon startle and flare his wings. “I’ll cut a few steaks and wrap them in fli’iara leaves. I’ve two ripe landas gourds and I spotted a patch of jiista-berry bushes just by the cave entrance. A feast! Shall I make a fire?”
“Shall I roast your woefully undersized rump?” he exclaimed, demonstrating with a curl of fire over his lip what he meant. “You’re travelling with a Dragon.”
“Ooh, I forgot,” said Lia, her eyes dancing as she swept into a flowing Fra’aniorian bow. “Please cook my meat, kind sky-lizard, whilst I … have no clue what I can do for you. This is going to be a very one-sided relationship, Grandion, if I can’t do anything to serve you.”
“Who needs servants? I’m a modern Dragon. Watch.”
Grandion picked up the haunch and, shaping the fire with his blue forked tongue, began to bathe it in a hissing stream of flame. He even rolled the hunk of meat steadily with his talons, ensuring that it cooked evenly. Having fireproof knuckles certainly helped.
“Yum,” Lia said, looking on from a safe distance. “Smells delicious. What does, ‘I’m a modern Dragon’ mean?”
“Human servitude was a blot in draconic history, but don’t tell most of my race I said that,” he averred. “Your congenial companionship is enough.”
A slow and rather silly smile spread across Lia’s face, chasing her blush as it broadened. “But I want to help. Look, you’ve a thorn vine stuck beneath your wing, in your … ah, armpit. Wing-pit? Can I help with that?”
Grandion nodded, still doing his incongruous impression of a cook turning a spit.
“Are these so-called ‘modern Dragons’ domesticated? Tame?”
“Tame?” Fire thundered out of his long throat, reducing the boulders in front of him to molten slag and turning the sand to glass. The Dragon spluttered, “Tame? Look, now I’ve ruined your meal, you rude … you little …”
“I’m sure that charred mess is still pink on the inside,” she returned, with a pert waggle of her woefully undersized rump as she marched over to his flank. “Bring your wing down here. I’ve been meaning to slice you up with my dagger.”
GRRAAA-UH! Grandion caught himself halfway into whirling upon her, fangs agape. Hualiama dived aside with a yelp. So her bravado had lasted less than ten seconds. Great. Now she had a bruised elbow and a bucket load of sand down her top.
“Insulting a Dragon is dangerous,” he muttered, shuffling his paws and looking as sheepish as a sixty-five foot Dragon could possibly look–a less than apt description, Lia decided.
She willed her heart to stop bruising the inside of her chest. “Sorry–I mean, I’m not sorry, Grandion. See? I’ve learned something about Dragons already.”
“Given as you’ve a brain the size of a large nut, you do continue to surprise me,” he growled, without menace.
“Grandion!”
He offered her a quirky smile. “Eat up. We should be on the wing within an hour.”
A minor eclipse of the twin suns behind the Blue moon lent the late afternoon a sleepy, golden aspect as Grandion winged northward, caldera-side of Janbiss Island, home to a colony of Red Dragons. By evening they had passed Churgra and Sa’athior, both smaller Human-inhabited Islands. Grandion weaved back to the Cloudlands side of Frendior in search of a favourite roost, but they found it already occupied by a mated pair of Green Dragons, who seemed in no mood to be disturbed.