step behind Brank’ox just to be on the safe side. Mia climbs on, the dragon flaps his wings, and then they soar high up into the night sky, obscuring the stars.
I breathe out. “So glad that’s not me.”
Brank’ox puts his sword back in its scabbard. “You don’t like dragons?”
“I like them fine when they’re a couple hundred feet away,” I admit. “They just scare me, is all.”
Brank’ox lays his head back and looks up at the stars. “I see.”
“But they don’t scare you?”
“The wise warrior has a healthy respect for any danger. But that is not the same as being scared. I’m rarely scared of creatures.”
I open the pot and sniff. Yep, that’s not-tequila. “Then what are you scared of? Must be something.”
“Dishonor,” he finally says into the sky. “Failure. Betraying someone’s trust.”
“I guess we should all be scared of doing that. Okay, Brank’ox. We have tequila and we have more food and water— oh my God, look at that!”
A mile away in the night sky, a long flame suddenly erupts from nowhere and illuminates the jungle in electric blue.
“Show-off,” I laugh and wave with my whole arm. “That’s Mia telling Kyandros to give us a little show. Yeaaaah! Ride that dragon!”
Brank’ox gives me a tight smile. “Very entertaining.”
“Sometimes. Want to go back down and get a drink?”
We make our way back down and sit on the deck. The material may be metal, but it doesn’t have the coolness of steel, and it’s comfortable enough to sit on.
I fill a whole cup for Brank’ox and a half cup for myself. I probably had enough not-tequila for one day, but just a little more can’t hurt. It’s not like it’s store-bought 80-proof stuff. This is much weaker. Turns out distilling booze beyond about 40 proof is pretty hard.
“Probably better to save the food for tomorrow,” Brank’ox says. “It’s a long walk. We’ll need the strength.”
I put the packs into my backpack. “We will. Hey. Cheers.”
Clinking my cup to his, we both take a sip.
I cough as the strong alcohol goes down my throat like a handful of sewing needles. “That’s smooth.”
“The same kind of liquid that you brought,” Brank’ox says. “It appears Mia likes the same one.”
“Most of the girls like this,” I inform him. “It’s the closest we get to parties back on Earth.”
He looks up at the stars. “Your home planet. Is it one of the lights we can see?”
I quickly loosen up my braid and lie down on my back with the backpack under my head. “Probably. Our Sun can probably be seen from here. Ashlynn thinks it might be that one. See the yellowish one there? Pretty bright? That could be it. And our Earth is somewhere close to it.”
Brank’ox takes another sip. “When I left my tribe to join the alien one, your tribe, that felt like a big event. A long walk, too. From one tribe to another, one life to another. But you come from another star. Is your life much different from before?”
“It’s different. In almost every way. That’s not to say that life here is bad. I mean, it was really bad the first months. When we were held captive by the dragon Troga. But once we had our own tribe, it got much better.”
“It is a good tribe,” Brank’ox agrees. “So good that it attracts many of us.”
The spirit goes down my throat and leaves another trail of fire. “Why did you come to our tribe? To see women?”
He thinks for a moment, drinking a little more not-tequila. I realize that I like his thoughtful manner – it’s so rare on Earth for a guy to be real, not just to put on some kind of act.
“Everyone was talking about it. A tribe that needed more men to kill dragons. A tribe that had women! I suppose first it was curiosity about that. When I came there, I saw women from afar. And it was interesting. But then I realized that this tribe really was different. Men from all the other tribes would come and be trained to fight dragons. Only the best men would be chosen for the army. It was so different from my own tribe, where everything seems to stand still. Here, there was life. Things were happening. There was activity. Not just an effort to keep everything the same and to make sure never to try anything new. I don’t dislike my old tribe. Not at all. It’s a good tribe in many ways. But your tribe