when it suddenly dove. The surface slapped her chin, closing her mouth. Water jetted up her nose, but she held on.
The dragon made a swift circuit of the inlet, lunging forward with each oar-like sweep of its paddle fins. She leaned close to its back, hoping it wouldn’t stay under too long. And as if aware of her need for air, it immediately surfaced. Leodora flexed forward like a branch that had been pulled back and then released. She clung to the dragon’s neck, spitting, coughing, gasping. And then laughing.
She laughed with a joy as naked as she. The dragon craned its neck and observed her with one solemnly inquisitive black eye. Then with a flick of its tail it scooted straight out of the inlet.
The rocks to either side scraped against her legs. Another month, she thought, and the little dragon would be too big to fit through that opening. Another hour and there wouldn’t have been enough water to clear it.
“How did you know about this?” she asked, as if the creature might suddenly explain itself. The transparent ruff fluttered, no communication she could understand. She had never seen any dragon in or near the inlet before, and she swam there nearly every day. When had it discovered the opening? Had it heard her farewell prayer? No, it would have had to be there already. Then she recalled that Dymphana had said a sea dragon had brought her mother home the night everyone thought she had drowned. This surely couldn’t be the same one—it was too young. But how did it know to find her? “How did one know to find my mother?” she wondered aloud. “Oh, I wish you could talk to me.”
Soon she had adjusted to the dragon’s thrusting motion through the water and sat with her knees bent, her heels clutching its sides, riding erect, the way the fishermen did as they left in the morning. Proud.
They journeyed well beyond the safe haven of her inlet, and farther out, around the point that divided Gousier’s land from the village. She watched her boathouse go by, stared through the open window as if she might glimpse herself watching herself. The dragon seemed to have an objective, a purpose. It carried her steadily within view of Tenikemac. “This is not a good idea, dragon,” she cautioned, but it didn’t heed her. She could have jumped off at any time, but the dragon’s purpose fixed her in place. The idea of the violation tempted and excited her. She was a girl out of their own stories. She was Reneleka and she was riding a sea dragon.
The first villager to see her was a woman on the beach, whose distant shout of alarm reached her ears even as others appeared in doorways and started down the beach. The woman flailed at the air and pointed. Shortly a dozen other women stood at the water’s edge.
Only then did she remember that she was naked. She was violating practically every taboo imaginable. Public nudity on a dragon. It almost made her laugh. She still might have dived into the water, hidden from view behind the creature. Maybe they wouldn’t have recognized her. But she stayed.
Then the dragon began circling away from the shore.
When it had turned to face out to sea, she saw coming straight at her another dragon. On its back sat Agmeon. He had the ropes of a net wrapped around his wrists as he held on to his dragon’s plume. Agmeon’s son on a second dragon held the other end of the net. They were returning early with their catch. The son’s gaze traveled down her body and then up again, meeting her eyes with a look both of arousal and embarrassment.
Agmeon’s furious, bloodshot glare held her rigid. She couldn’t shrink away now, and his anger passed to her, fueling her defiance; pride and self-esteem mixing with resentment of all the rules he embodied—how arbitrarily her position changed when he chose it. Let them banish her. They were too late. She had already banished herself.
Agmeon’s mount swam past hers. From his look as he went by, she knew if he’d had a weapon and could have dropped his net he would have killed her on the spot. His son passed more closely but could only look at her from the side of his eyes. No one spoke. Only the dragons moved. Hers swam on as if it had encountered nothing. Nor had the other two seemed to notice