Hamlet Thriving (Black Lake book 2)

Chapter 9
Tae

~

I soared behind Kyn. Instead of watchin’ the earth below, studied how the sun glimmered off my sibling’s hide. There was a beautiful bluish hue. Wasn’t as beautiful as the red and purple shimmer of our sire’s, but I couldn’t help but be a little jealous of my bull sibling. He isn’t as large as the first clutched Tir, but Kyn looks the most like our beloved sire, Mo’sale. For that reason, pretty sure, is why our queen favors Kyn over his three siblings.

Not that the queen treated any of us well. She’s more likely to take a taloned swipe at any of the bulls of the lair, though the past six months she’d mellowed for some, unexplainable reason. Since we rose from hibernation, the queen remained lethargic. Her health troubled our sire. That she agreed to move to a new home away from the heights without a battle, nearly terrified us all. Believe Iza neared a confused conniption.

Kyn veered to the right by turnin’ an edge of a wing. Delayed by my thoughts, I thrust hard to get back in formation—a prideful consideration. I realized why my sibling had turned. It wasn’t for our search.

We overflew the rock slide where our largest clutchmate and his ogre-rider likes to hide away. The two-legged one reads his poetry and our sibling suns. The black basalt boulders gather the sun’s heat. If we could find a lair near a similar formation, it would be perfect for our queen.

Kyn trumpeted down to Tir. The sleepin’, tan-colored dragon barely budged by the time we passed. It wasn’t fair Tir escapes his duties to the sedge, to laze about.

Kyn has snapped at me more than once when I’ve complained about our siblings, their lives away from the lair. Kyn and I have paid for Iza, Tir and Syl’s absence more than once—still do for the queen’s resentment of the three dragons livin’ among the two-legged lesser bein’s. Odd, that Kyn only seems happy for the three, claims he and I receive our own rewards, by our close relationship with the queen and her bull.

I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to be bonded with one of the two-legged ones.

I growled, irritated Kyn took another pass so near the Hamlet. We had already searched here. Kyn turned north in response, still against the wishes I’ve voiced for days. It makes more sense to look for a new lair south, closer to our huntin’ grounds. Kyn argues our dam wishes to remain close to the young queen’s home. Iza is, after all, everythin’ to Ash’et. Her only pride.

I hold my tongue as I follow Kyn farther and farther north, though it makes no sense. Kyn arced around the tall peak, dived toward the midlands. The forest thinned. Far ahead I could see the break, where the trees vanish at the foot of a plain. I grimace, thinkin’ how much closer we fly toward human settlements, and not those we have connections with, like the Hamlet. But the lower elevation means a much warmer climate for our aged queen.

Below us, still in the steeper foothills, we find a basalt flow. Kyn descended toward it. Waste of time. We would only find a proper, safe lair in the peaks. Yet I follow Kyn’s weavin’ path as he dives until we fly just above the tops of the occasional craggy pine and cedar. Kyn backstroks to land, for what, I couldn’t determine.

~

“It’s perfect,” Kyn bellowed.

I at first assume he jests. When I realize he isn’t, several emotions clash in my mind.

“Have ya lost yar senses? That’s no proper home for a dragon—for a queen. There’s no security here. This is stupid.”

My bull sibling growls.

We stand before a modest indention in the rock where lava eons ago flowed against an ancient hill that long ago eroded away. The cavity set no more than eighty feet into the Earth. The arched ceilin’ of the hollow is as high as our cavern lair is deep.

“It’s too shallow,” I point out the obvious.

“Nonsense. We’re ten thousand feet below the elevation of our current lair. We don’t have to crawl deep inside a mountain to get out of the elements. Heat will be more a problem than the cold, here. Look at this black sand. It will absorb the sun, but there’s plenty of shade inside. Feel the breeze makin’ its way up from the plain? We can still look upon the beauty of the valley. It’s exactly what the queen needs.”

This is so different from our environment the last decade—outrageously accessible by the two-legged races. Pent up anger floods my mind. I roar at my sibling, throw back my wings in threat. Kyn reacts with even more rancor, and we stand facin’ each other down for a ten-count, growlin’ and gnashin’ our teeth. I almost wished my sibling would attack me, give me an excuse to— But the black dragon simply mirrored my bluff.

We have to have looked incredibly stupid, so I retracted my extended neck. Kyn follows suit, and we both, slowly relax. Neither say a word for some time. I finally turn away and look far below, at the meanderin’ slope that met the plain. A dirt devil raced west, liftin’ a willowy spiral of dust.

It’s brown, dry, drastically different from the peaks, Lake, and deep forest below our current lair. In comparison, it’s ugly. As I watch, a herd of deer race from one clump of trees to another, directly to our west. Far below, a herd of antelope feed on the tall grass of the plain. At least there’s game. Worth a good snack. But security’s paramount. There is none here.

“We are at peace with the two-legged,” Kyn says, as though he read my mind, which I intentionally have closed to him.

“The queen will hate it,” I said. “She hasn’t a scintilla of trust in the lesser races. Hates them.”

“We’ll show it to Mo’sale, and see what he thinks, first.”

A rumble of discomfort emanates from my chest, unbidden. I turn back to look at my sibling.

“Stop yar snarlin’ at me. We’ll bring back Iza as well.” Kyn launched into the air.

~

Mo’sale remained quiet. Knew he had to hate it. My sire turned and waddled into the recession, dug into the deep, coarse sand for several moments. I stand watchin’ him, not understandin’ what he’s doin’. Nestin’, I finally realize. Our current lair contains a floor of solid granite. Nestlin’ into sand and gravel isn’t somethin’ we can do there.

Mo’sale squats down, squirms a bit in the sand, and a contented growl echoed within the clam-shaped, shallow cavern. Iza stepped away from the mouth of the cavity and lay across the black gravel, extendin’ her enormous wings. I stand with Kyn patiently, waitin’ for Mo’sale and Iza to share their thoughts. After a few moments I realize both snored.

“I think that’s their answer,” Kyn said softly.

I glared at him for a moment, before launchin’. Wanted to get away from them—before I said somethin’ I would regret. Location made no sense. My dam should hate it. She hates the two-legged—fear, despise them. Any, all of them, dwarf, daemon, or goblin, could stroll up to what the ignernt of my sedge consider a wonderful lair.

I press hard to climb and use the heat risin’ off the plain to soar west. Though I’m high above the foothills to my left, the air remains warm. I have to admit it’s a nice change from the cold currents above the high valley deep in the Range. There’s a beauty about the place, too. Perhaps it isn’t as dramatic, but there’s a calm allure. The plain narrowed, and a watershed formed. A deepenin’ wash ferried a narrow rush of whitewater north. I find myself over greener pastures, steeper foothills.

I spot a small herd of mindless critters like the two-legged breed in Black Lake Valley. But, I see no structures like those in the Hamlet. Sight of the game makes me consider my stomach. Could eat. Always wondered what the animals belongin’ to the two-legged taste like.

I circle, lookin’ to find if the herd is tended. My heart sinks as I see one of the two-legged. I lean, but don’t have a thermal to rise without effort. Somethin’, I don’t know what, encourages me to continue glidin' down, to investigate the two-legged one below, so close to what Mo’sale considers a perfect home for our queen.

It looks like a young one. I watch it swingin’ somethin’ attached to a rope. At the end of an arc, an object flew away from him. Queer lookin’ task. Could see no purpose in the activity.

I bank and drop down near the thin’. It has a snout, and short tusks—no ogre bull after all. An ogre hen. Three hairy beasts like the one that always remains within sight of the human, Bick, runs forward raisin’ their racket.

The ogre whistles, and the three beasts lie down, glarin’ at me, teeth still bared.

“Ya must be one of them Black Lake dragons,” the ogre hen says. “I heard an awful row of screamin’ hours ago. Was that ya?” She rolled up the contrivance she’d been usin’ and pushes it into a broad pocket of her smock.

I'm disappointed the ogre isn’t frightened of me. I stand and study her for a moment, then the dogs, and finally the goats. Swallow. The animals smell surprisingly fresh and tasty.

“I thought ya dragons could speak Standish,” the ogre hen says.

“I can speak the common language,” I answer, turnin’ back to the slight thin’.

“Ya sure are lookin’ at my flock with a bit of greed in yar eye,” she says.

“I imagine they’re off limits?”

“To ya? I suspect so. Wouldn’t be too sportin’ for ya to feed on ’em. My papa would get awful mad, too. Hate to see him come after ya with a shovel. Wouldn’t be a pretty sight.”

The image she had created made me laugh. The ogre hen lurched backward, and the three dogs rose and growled.

“Didn’t mean to make ya mad,” she said in a rush.

“Ya didn’t. Sorry. That’s a dragonish laugh.”

Her shoulders lower after a moment, face loosens. “Good to know.” She whistled again, formin’ her lips in that fashion a dragon could never manage. The small beasts quieted. The hen let go one last sharp tone and waved, and the dogs ran, I assume to return to the flock, to protect them from predators. Ugly, and nasty, without a spit of personality, but perhaps they serve a purpose.

“Ya’re not gonna feed on my babies, are ya?”

Babies? I look out over the flock, then back at the ogreling. “I promise,” I say more than a little reluctantly. My mind wanders—would my queen ever learn, if I cheated?

“I’ve always hoped to meet one of yar kind.”

The thin’ walks up to me and starts to chatter away, the stories comin’ like a gate opened. As that silly ogre bull Ike would say, oh my gods. I lay in the grass and listened to the thin’. What she said wasn’t terribly interestin’, but her words seemed lullin’, like my dam’s hum years ago when the sun was settin’, and she wanted me and my siblings to quiet down and sleep.

In a short while I hear all about the ogre hen’s near and extended family, how long they had lived on the plain, her preference of foods, her dislike of ogreling-bulls, and much more than I thought necessary for the creature to share.

Within the first few minutes she had boldly begun touchin’ my wing, explainin’ my hide looks cottony. I have no idea what cottony looks like, but I nod in the fashion I understand the two-legged accept as tacit understandin’ or concurrence. The hen continus to rub me. It felt good. My eyes whirl, and before I know it, my head sways. I didn’t care. The little creature’s touch felt marvelous.

~

I lazily looked up at the sun, shocked to see it touched the tops of the far off trees. Was incredulous the day slipped by so quickly. I lower my head as Aedwin, that’s the ogre hen’s name, climbs from one shoulder to the other. Her feet proddin’ into my muscle in magnificent massage. So that’s what Tir, Iza and Syl get from their relationships with their two-legged riders.

“Aedwin! What are ya doin’?”

I raise my head, strugglin’ to open my eyelids. An older ogreling-hen approaches. She wears a sour-lookin’ scowl. The three dogs run to her and roll submissively before her. She leans down and rubs each of their tummies, before they run off again.

She shouts at Aedwin. “Ya should be bringin’ the flock in. Papa will be furious.”

But Aedwin ignores her sister’s warnin’. She’s busy tellin’ about her new friend, the dragon. I feel my eyes whirlin’ again. Couldn’t remember tellin’ the ogre hen so much over the last several hours. With as much as the little creature talks, it’s hard to believe she slowed down long enough to even hear anythin’ I had to say to her questions. Had I really, complained, so much about Tir?

Aedwin apologizes that she has to get back to the flock. I groan at the lovely sensation of the creature slidin' down my shoulder.

“Gotta go now,” Aedwin says with a last pat on my chest, “but will ya come back tomorrow?”

“Of course,” I answer without thought, as though the ogre used majic to beckon the words.

“I’ll be a bit east of here,” the ogreling-hen continues. “Can’t over-pasture.”

The little creature throws her arms around my neck. I don’t know why the thin’s grasp tightens my chest so. Felt my head swayin’ left and right. It didn’t embarrass me at all, though. Shoulda. But didn’t.

I watch the two ogres and three dogs work the herd expertly. In minutes they are out of sight, up one of the little valleys leadin’ into the steeper foothills. The sky to the west has turned a dark orange, the eastern sky a rich purple. I look toward the peaks to the south. There’s no way I’m gonna make it to our mountain lair in the remainin’ light.

I have never slept away overnight, alone. Only with my sedge when the seven of us are south on a long hunt, have I slept anywhere besides our deep cavern. The thought makes me feel lonely, but oddly not for my family, but for Aedwin.

Where to go? The shallow shell Kyn liked so much is the only thin’ that made sense. It lay only a few minutes away. I stand stiffly, stretch my wings, watchin’ the ever-changin’ western sky for a few minutes. The period of ocher sky is my favorite, I think. For a moment I consider stayin’ right here, to be closer to Aedwin. Have no idea why that thought crossed my mind. Was silly. But I continue to linger. Force myself to launch into the air before it gets too dark to fly.

~

I’m shocked to find my sire, dam, and sibling all sleepin’ inside the shell of a cave. Mo’sale trumpeted softly in greetin’. I fold in my wings and waddle inside. Find a spot of my own, scratchin’ a depression into the warm, deep sand, and lay down. There’s no hissin’ or snarlin’ from the queen, though when I settle, her neck unwound and her head hovered over me, smellin’ where the ogre hen lay across my shoulders, I know.

I grimace, waitin’ for her angry outburst. But none comes. Instead, I feel her caress the top of my neck with her chin for a moment, before curlin’ back up to sleep. Could not remember her ever touchin’ me like that before.

I relax into the warm sand, talons clenchin’ into it as though explorin’ it on their own. The coarse silica feels as though it massages my hide. Driftin’ asleep, I think of my new friend. Sense a lightness in my heart. Think about how kindly Iza treated me and my bull siblings after she bonded with Lucas.

Finally makes sense. A little.

~