My habit had always been to wake with the dawn, and in spite of exhaustion I was lying there, half awake, as the sun came up outside my window. I was feeling almost peaceful, and was just debating on trying to go back to sleep or get up--
My dragon twitched violently, his tail thwacking info the wall, and I jumped, suddenly wide awake. He growled in his sleep, sending shivers up my spine, then jerked sharply, making me jump again as I sat up to look at him.
Just as I was about to go over to him, he started flailing, slamming his tail and one wing against the hard stone wall, and screaming. Such screaming! I covered my ears, and, not knowing what to do, screamed, myself.
I was still screaming, my eyes clamped shut, when Evie and Graela burst into the room. The bang of the door against the wall was enough to shock me out of my noise, and I just stared at them for a moment--until my dragon growled again.
Suddenly all eyes were on him. He was awake, on his feet, crouched and glaring at us. His face was pure terror to look at.
"Tolla," Graela said in a quiet, low tone, "stand up slowly."
Her voice was controlled, but it was obvious she was afraid--a thought that froze my blood. I knew that dragons were not to be feared. Dragons will not hurt you--then why were they scared of my juvenile?
I got to my feet and his growling intensified. I froze.
"Tolla," Graela said, "you have to talk to him."
He snarled and took a step forward as she spoke, and Evie flinched. I was trembling so hard I was afraid my legs would collapse. My dragon snarled at the two women again, and I squeaked.
"Tolla, you're the only one who can calm him down," Graela said, even quieter. I turned to look at her, and my dragon lunged.
He only made it a couple paces before he stopped, there only feet away in the middle of the floor. I scrambled back and pressed myself against the wall, eyeing the open door.
Evie darted for the door, Graela watching my dragon, and then she followed at once. I tried to follow, but Graela slammed the door in my face and held it shut. I shrieked and pounded on it as my dragon let out his adolescent roar behind me. My heart was racing so fast, I could swear it would burst.
“Tolla, stop panicking!” Graela shouted, “If you panic, you’ll provoke him.”
I froze and turned around, slowly. My dragon was advancing on me, one step at a time. His eyes held only hate; his cold intelligence gone in favor of a beast that would surely rip my face off before he thought twice.
I let out a tiny scream and flattened myself against the door. My mind was blank. Talk to him? What were words? I couldn’t even string one thought together.
“Tolla?” Evie called out, sounding hysterical.
I burst into tears and, sobbing, sank to the floor against the door as my dragon slowly came right up to me and snarled maliciously in my face. He snapped his jaws inches from my face, and I screamed again.
A hasty, shouted command and a rapid pounding of feet down the hall outside couldn’t distract me from the terror. He was drooling on me; all I could fixate on was one crystalline drop of saliva as it stretched… stretched… drip.
A roar like none I’d ever heard sounded outside the house, making me scream again and my dragon whip his head around to look at the window. The roar sounded again, then gained pitch until it was a shriek so violent that I felt my head must surely explode. My dragon turned around and bounded toward the window--I hadn’t even realized he could run--and smacked the glass with his wingclaws, shrieking a challenge, then he turned and stalked toward me again.
I scrambled back into a corner and cowered. He loomed over me and lowered… opened… his jaws…
“Tolla!” Graela yelled, and I screamed. My dragon pounced--
The window shattered as his teeth touched my head, and I shrieked bloody murder--until suddenly he was snatched away by some unknown force. I looked up, wide-eyed, long enough to see my dragon slam, going instantly ragdoll-limp, against the wide sill of the broken bay window, and then the massive claws that held him took him out and down, instantly lost to my view.
***
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It took Evie two hours to calm me down. She’d come through the door and scooped me up immediately, as I sobbed and sobbed my terror into her shoulder. After a few minutes of this and I was still inconsolable, she carried me to her room and tucked me into her bed, all heavy blankets and warm softness around me. She fussed with my head for a while, with a damp, warm cloth, and sat with me afterwards. Finally, when my crying had subsided into silent, shocked staring, she slipped out for a couple of minutes.
She returned looking a little more cheerful and a little less somber. “Your dragon will be fine,” she said, and kissed my forehead. “He’s woken up and he’s back to himself.”
I stared at her in horror. “He tried to kill me,” I whispered. I reached up and touched my scalp and discovered partially dried blood and a few bandages across my head. I hadn’t even felt the pain.
“Oh honey, it wasn’t on purpose. But sometimes, when a dragon goes a little mad before he’s anchored, that madness stays in his mind for a while. And sometimes… it can come out.”
I shuddered, and choked back another sob. "So I didn't save him after all?"
She stroked my forehead gently. "Of course you did but... You can't fix people in a day. It will take time to help him."
I laid there for a few more minutes. "Is he okay?"
"He'll be fine. And… He asked to see you once you feel okay.”
I stiffened. “Not yet.”
“Of course, sweetie, take your time. Tell you what. You can stay here as long as you need to, and I’ll send your dragon to your room. As soon as you are ready, you can go back in there to see him.”
I nodded mutely, even though I scarcely felt like I would ever be okay. But I knew that I couldn’t hide in her bed forever.
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***
She left me alone soon enough, and I just laid there, thinking or not thinking, but I was hardly aware of what went through my head. I was almost dozing off when a light tap on the door startled me.
“Yes?” My voice was hoarse, and I cleared my throat.
“Tolla?”
I froze. It was my dragon.
“Yes?” I said, and now I quavered.
“Are you okay?”
“Y-yeah,” I lied, and slowly got out of the bed and opened the door.
He crouched there in the hall, looking small and almost deflated. He had a large knot on his skull just above his brow, with a bandage over it and a little dried blood still stuck under his scales around it. Without thinking of what I was doing, I reached out and touched it very lightly, and he flinched.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt--”
“That didn’t hurt,” he muttered, “just jumpy.”
I just stood there for a moment until he shuffled backwards. “Coming?” he asked softly, and then lead the way to our room.
I sat down on the edge of my bed and he came over and sat on the floor, resting his head on the mattress near me.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said, sighing, “I just--sometimes something creeps into my brain and I lose control. It’s probably going to happen again.” He lifted his head and looked me in the eyes. “When it does… I need your help. If you try to get through to me, it will probably work… you hold my mind together in yours, after all. I almost was able to stop myself from biting you, almost…” He turned away suddenly and stomped his way over to his nest. “You have to stand up to me when I get like that. Nobody else could, but you could bring me back. Understand?”
I nodded, trying not to whimper. A promise was one thing, but I wasn’t sure I could face the fear again if he turned on me with teeth bared.
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***
“Kerra and Brown!”
I jumped slightly, as I had every time the secretary came out to call for the next pair. My dragon, curled, lethargic and bored, at my feet, shifted and sighed as a young boy--younger than me--and a smallish brown dragon walked past us into the spacious office room beyond.
“Why are we sitting right by the door?” I whispered.
“Beats me, you’re the one who picked that bench,” my dragon said in a normal tone of voice, and he ignored my irritation at his noise. He shifted again, laid his head on his wing, and closed his eyes.
I leaned back against the wall. We’d been here for an hour already, sitting in a room full of bright-eyed young people, most around my age or younger, and their equally bright-eyed young dragons. Some were talking animatedly, some jittering in excitement--two of the youngest dragons were staging a wrestling match in the middle of the floor, growling and squealing. I was nervous, but also utterly bored--and no way in hell did I want to be here.
When our turn came to go inside, we’d talk to an old man for a few minutes and then be sent out into the huge courtyard behind the building, where we’d be tested--by the sound of it, vigorously. I wasn’t looking forward to it. My dragon didn’t seem to care--he just lay sullenly at my feet. I thought perhaps he wasn’t feeling well, but I wasn’t sure if I could call it a case of the nerves. He seemed too passive to be nervous.
"Minnin and Auburn."
I jumped again and then scooted away from the door a little once the secretary left the doorframe. A boy about my age and a pretty auburn dragon got up from across the room, the dragon leading the way. The dragon lifted her lip at my own companion as she passed, but the boy smiled at me. I could only manage a grimace in response, and my dragon rumbled slightly.
"Why do they call dragons by color?" I whispered.
My dragon picked up his head and rested it on my knee, making me tense up, so he could whisper back. "Some of us don't have names yet and they don't want to call attention to that difference."
"That seems a little silly."
He just snorted and put his head back on the floor.
"Tolla and... White?"
I jumped, then got up and meekly padded towards the door in my soft shoes. After he shuffled his way up off the floor, my dragon passed me and nosed into the doorway.
I scrambled to follow him as he wove deftly through the desks inside. He knew right where to go. I tried to keep up as best as possible without stepping on his tail.
He stuck his head around a partition into a smaller room near the back.
“Hello, young drake, where’s your--ah, hello,” the man at the desk said, spotting me as I peeked over my dragon’s head.
“Getting a little forward?” he asked my dragon with raised brow as he stood up to shake my hand.
“She’s timid,” he said bluntly, “And I knew the way.”
I blushed bright red, but took the man’s hand for a brief moment. It was leathery and coarse from working.
“Ah yes, I remember you… you faked an Anchor last year.”
My dragon growled slightly in his throat as I sat down in the wicker human chair. My dragon perched awkwardly on a stool meant for him, not meeting the man’s eyes. “We all do what we must to stay alive,” he grumbled.
To my surprise, the man chuckled. “You almost cost yourself your life with that stunt.”
My dragon just glared.
“Sorry, young lady,” the man said, and smiled at me, a harsh change from the almost-grimace he’d been giving my dragon. “This rogue and I have a bit of a history. I’m Kannas.”
I tried to smile back, but stayed silent. He already knew my name.
“So! What provoked a country girl like yourself to join an Eyrie?”
I stared at him, struck dumb. Join? Me? Ha!
“It was me,” my dragon growled after he saw that I wasn’t going to do anything other than stare at Kannas with my mouth open. “I Anchored on her in the street two days ago.”
He sat back and regarded me like a hawk. “Really?”
“Yes,” I squeaked.
“Oh, I do feel sorry for you…”
“Shut up and get this over with,” my dragon snapped.
We both looked at him in shock.
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"Why did you have to pick a fight with him?" I whispered.
"He already hates me," he grumbled, "may as well give him an actual reason."
"If you're nice to people, then they'll--"
"They'll what, like me? Fat chance. He hates me for existing, and for what I did. Neither of those things can change."
I shut up then, partially because I didn't have anything to say and partially because a very large dragon was walking by.
My dragon waited, glaring at nothing, until she passed. "They'll hate you too, or else pity you, because you're anchored to me. You'll see."
A middle-aged woman dressed in riding clothes startled me by trotting up to us just then. "Tolla?” She asked briskly.
I nodded.
She looked me over as the dragon who'd just passed wandered back over again. "What on Terrasa are you wearing?"
I looked down at my plain, peasant's dress, already feeling myself go red.
"Clothes, clearly," my dragon muttered. I wanted to kick him.
"The wrong clothes," she answered, nudging his wing with her boot in reprimand. "Come on, let's go find you some proper training gear. You go with her," she said, looking at my dragon and pointing to the one standing behind her.
"I can't, he said instantly, standing up straighter and lurching to one side as he used one wing claw to delicately hold up the pendant of the brass necklace he'd been made to wear. "I have to stay with her at all times."
That was the new rule. They'd wanted us near each other before, but since my dragon's attack of madness yesterday morning, Graela had gone and gotten that necklace from somewhere. It was proof of the law. Proof that he was telling the truth.
She eyed him with what might have been disgust, but her face was hard to read. "Fine, you both come with me then." She strode briskly away, leaving us scrambling to catch up, and her dragon (I assumed she was hers) followed at a leisurely pace.
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The woman shooed me into a room that was basically an oversized closet and told me to find something that fit and change. My dragon skulked right outside the door, muttering to himself, and I hastily rummaged through the room.
Clothes hung on racks and pegs and were pulled and stacked on shelves and in baskets and on the floor. They all seemed to be made of leather or heavy canvas. It took me a few minutes to figure out how the room was organized... until I realized that it wasn't.
I found some trousers that looked about right and a shirt and jerkin, and put them all on--and then found a strip of ribbon-like material to tie my hair back with. I folded my old clothes neatly and emerged, peeking around.
My dragon looked me over. "You'll do," he said, and yawned.
The brisk woman appeared out of nowhere and glanced me over as well. "Leave your old clothes in there," she said, pointing to a nearby door. "Let's get going."
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"You could have told me you have no experience in anything, ever."
"How on Terrasa did you think I would get training? I've lived in the country my whole life, I ain't a city girl--or an Eyrie girl," I snapped, nursing my sore arms.
He used a wingclaw to grab the door-handle to our room and twisted it deftly, then nudged it open with his head. "Well in that case, you clearly have no natural talent in anything either,” he said acidly, and shuffled over to the broken window. The glass had been cleaned up, and the remains of the wooden frames hung sadly in the opening. Graela had said that they'd have it replaced in a day or two.
He nudged at it in an attempt to open it anyway, but I didn’t move to help him. He glared at me and tossed his head toward it, but when I still didn’t move, he growled to himself and went to lie down in his nest.
I stood up. “I’m going downstairs.”
“Whatever.”
I paused, took a deep breath, and recited, “If you feel the mad--”
“Yell for you, I know. Scram,” he growled, and I, blushing bright red, scrammed.
Downstairs, I slipped into the empty study. Evie, Graela, and their dragons were all out on some sort of duty. The house had been completely empty until my dragon and I returned.
I browsed the bookshelves around the edges of the room, feeling out of place. I did love to read, and Evie had told me that I was welcome to any of the books in the house… but I still felt like a trespasser.
I scanned titles, only half paying attention, until a slim little volume caught my eye--it was bright green, bright like a colorful dragon. I pulled it out.
A Young Anchor’s Guide to Naming Your Dragon.
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I pushed the door back open to find my dragon on the windowsill, staring through the large holes in the glass. He didn’t hear me come in, so he didn’t have time to harden the expression on his face before I saw it, just a bit, just for a moment. His face was filled with longing.
I padded across the room, alerting him with my muffled footfalls, and I moved over and sat in the far edge of the windowsill, taking up very little room; my dragon occupied the rest.
“I found a book,” I said meekly.
He turned and looked at what was in my hands, getting his big head too close for comfort until I held it out for him to read. He snorted softly.
“I’ve read that,” he said, “It’s a load of trash. We should go to the grand library if we’re going to research names.”
“Names need to be researched?”
He huffed softly, more to himself than at me. “I have an idea of what I’d like,” he mumbled. “I know you’re supposed to name me, but…”
“You can pick any name you like,” I said quickly, relieved at not having the burden of naming him all by myself. I felt almost sure he’d hate anything I could come up with, anyway.
He looked at me for the first time with what I thought might be respect. “Let’s go, then.”
Downstairs, he quickly found a slate and chalk, and to my surprise he set them on the table and then, leaning his chest against the edge of it for support, deftly held down the slate with one wingclaw and scrawled a quick note with the other. I watched silently. I’d never known dragons could write.
He looked at me and held up one wing. “Advantage of being a freak. My claws are small enough to hold writing instruments.” He walked to the door, stopped for a moment, said, “For now,” and then proceeded out.
I followed him closely all the way to the library, and saw more of the Eyrie than I ever had before. Even after having been here for two days, and slowly getting used to the immensity of everything, dragon-sized buildings still made me feel like a midget. I was glad that my dragon was still small enough to use normal, human-sized doors, so we didn’t have to go around the front to the massively dragon-sized entrance.
Good thing he went in front--I stopped dead in shock the moment I entered the door. I was struck dumb by the number of books before me. The room was massive, and the shelves covered every--
“Can I help you two?”
I jumped and looked at the desk in the middle of the room. A pert young man sat there, smiling amiably at us, looking ready to hop up out of his chair at any moment.
“We can manage by ourselves,” my dragon said curtly.
The man stood up and looked him over, while my dragon stared in that way of his that was half look, half death glare.
“I guess you’re still small enough to go back amongst the shelves,” the man said after a moment, “Just keep your wings tucked in.”
“Sure thing,” my dragon said a bit sarcastically, but he walked very carefully past the desk and into a room beyond, his wingtips tucked carefully into the confines of his stride and not flicking out like normal. I followed him.
Beyond the doorframe lay shelves upon shelves of more books. My dragon stopped, sniffed once, and then set out. He kept to the edge of the room, going left, and finally we came to another door--which lead to a hallway--and then a door that was much wider than I was used to. My dragon opened it deftly as I noticed that the handle was even a different shape--long and wide, not round--and he practically scampered through, clearly excited.
I understood why the moment I followed. The first room had left me speechless; this one made me feel like I would fall over. It was as high as two dragons, higher than any dragon could stretch no matter how far he reached upward, and I thought that it must be five wingspans across. The whole room was perfectly circular. We were on a balcony halfway up, and every wall in sight was covered--again--with books. The lamps that lit the shelves made the atmosphere seem surreal--magical.
“Wow,” I breathed finally, able to get my breath back.
“Perfect,” my dragon said happily, peering down over the balcony. “Completely deserted. Nobody ever wants to come in a stuffy place and read when the day is this bright.”
I tried not to look down, feeling a little dizzy from the height.
A moment later, my dragon jumped the balcony railing and flew, almost hitting me with his wing on the way past.
I watched him for a few minutes as he circled. The room was more than big enough for such a small dragon to fly--and how joyful he looked!
He finally landed, panting hard, next to me, skidding slightly on the wood floor and thumping into the bookshelf by the door, but he recovered quickly, muttering about slick wood and not being able to get purchase with his claws.
“What is this room?” I asked
“It’s full of texts for dragons,” he said, neatly taking one off the shelf and handing it to me--I almost dropped it. It was easily the biggest book I had ever seen, and incredibly heavy. I set it down on the floor to examine it. A thick cover, a first page--page? It was a board…
I looked closer at the book and laughed. The pages were made of thin wood!
“Durable,” he said, flipped the book shut, and put it back. “Go find somewhere to sit down below, okay? I’ll be down shortly.”
I did as he asked. I walked around the balcony until I found the one staircase--I wasn’t keen on ladders--and then found a large cushion to sit on near a much larger lantern.
My dragon fluttered around a bit, then pulled a book from the shelf in one place, set it on the railing, and backed up. I watched, confused--until he launched himself into the air, absolutely pounced on the book and, holding it in his back feet, flew a bit laboredly down to me. He landed clumsily, still clinging to the book, on a cushion next to me, and then hopped off and was fluttering up again. He landed on a balcony up very high and hunted through the shelves a bit more, then again set a book on the railing and flew it down to me.
By the time he was done, we had four books--all dragon-language dictionaries, I noticed--and he was panting hard.
“Blood in Heaven am I ever not used to that much exercise,” he squawked cheerfully, and I rubbed my ears and scowled at him, but he ignored me, curling up on the floor right by my cushion. “Scoot over here so you can see too.”
I inched closer, but not too much, and peered over his arm at the book as he turned pages.
He kept muttering something in the dragons’ language--the same word again and again, though I had no idea what it could be. Finally, giving up, he grabbed another book and started hunting--only to toss it aside five minutes later. I just sat uselessly, not recognizing the characters on the pages.
With a growl of annoyance, he moved to the third book, then flicked it aside almost at once. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“What?”
“My name,” he said, and then said it, and I just looked at him blankly. He sighed.
“Come on, help me get these back on the shelves,” he said with a sigh, and nosed a book towards me. I hefted it with difficulty and looked at him. “What am I supposed to do with it? Climb the stairs? This is heavy!”
He looked at me, then the book, then up at the shelves, then sighed. “I don’t know… oh!” he scrambled hastily away from me. “Hold it above your head.”
“What?”
“Just do it!” he shouted, and took off again.
I hefted the brick-of-a-book up and held it on top of my head as he circled, and then he dove towards me, yelling, “Higher!”
I tried to, limbs shaking, but as he bore down on my I lost my nerve and fell back with a shriek, book landing heavily on my legs. My dragon swooped just overhead, then landed roughly a short distance away.
“You damn wuss, can’t you just hold still?” he snapped, shoving me with his nose, “Get up and hold it at arm’s length. Close your eyes if you have to, but don’t move this time!” He waited until I was on my feet to take off, and I held the book up and closed my eyes.
I screamed when he snatched it out of my hands, but then opened my eyes to watch him fly very heavily up to a high shelf and land, putting the book up. He sat panting for a moment, then called down, “Hold up the next!”
Shaking, I picked up another book and held it. Again he swooped, and I managed to only squeak. I tried to convince myself to be brave. It was just my dragon. He wasn’t scary--
Who was I kidding.
The third book back in its place, I went to lift the fourth--and could barely even get it to waist height. My dragon waited above, but finally I dropped it with a loud thump and let out a whimper.
“Put in on a table, then,” he yelled down, still too loud even for the distance he was at. I heaved it up high enough to set on the nearest table, then backed off as he swooped again.
He grabbed the book and then dipped so far that his talons almost brushed the floor before he managed to get back up, beating his wings hard, loud, wind going everywhere--but he couldn’t carry it. He got as high as the first balcony and then couldn’t seem to gain any more height. He dropped the book and it fell--fell--
CRACK.
I stood in horror, watching as the heavy spine cracked and the wooden pages clattered to the floor in a pile. My dragon hastily landed on the nearest railing, half a second before the ground-floor level door burst open.
A very large and very irate dragon looked around and spotted my dragon at once, then the broken book on the floor. He seemed to swell up in rage, and the two of us stood frozen.
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“Good thing he didn’t examine that book too closely,” my dragon said almost cheerfully once we’d been escorted back home.
I sat down in a chair at the table, my back hurting from being so tense, trying not to cry. “How is anything about getting yelled at by a very angry librarian good,” I muttered weakly.
“He didn’t realize the book didn’t come from where I was. He bought my lie that I just knocked it off the railing by accident.”
I looked at him blankly.
“I could have been caught flying, stupid!” he snapped, and rustled his wings noisily. “I can’t get grounded again.”
