Dragonic Freedom

By Katherine A Smith

“I NEVER SEE him anymore,” Morrigan muttered to herself, “except when he’s sleeping.”
The dragon glanced back over her shoulder at the raft she was towing. Taking up roughly three-quarters of the deck space was another dragon, black, like her, but with gold secondaries and crest in place of her purple and crimson, with the addition of a broad white stripe from chin to—well.
“Yeah, and there hasn’t been any of that lately either,” Morrigan went on, grousing to herself. “Two weeks at sea, and not even a passing hint at privacy, not that the raft could support both our weights at the same time anyway, but that isn’t the point. The humans now, well, they have a nice little shelter there to sleep in, and to do all other various sorts of things in.”
The humans in question were currently sitting on the raft and fishing, useful at least, though they’d be more useful if they were paddling.
“And I have turned into a beast of burden, I the dragon that saved Byrd, and Palo, nearly single-handedly, well, okay, Kyan helped, a bit, and Matilda did kill the king, no thanks to Leigh. But Leigh did stitch me up when I caught that spear with my pectoral muscles, and he saved Kyan, with Sniper’s help. And I will admit Sniper’s bow-work was downright astounding. And Elli did get the Byrd army to retreat, and prevented Leigh and Matilda from getting trampled. Alright, maybe I didn’t do it completely on my own, but nearly. You’d think they’d be grateful.”
Morrigan’s wings vibrated in the stiff wind and she let the tips dip down to kick up spray from the surface of the western sea, droplets like jewels dashing up to sparkle in the fresh dawn light. A flicker of movement caught her eye and she snatched downward with a hind claw, snagging a critter out of the water. Not bothering to do more than glance cursorily at it to make sure it wasn’t one they’d identified as poisonous or dangerous to swallow due to spines, she tossed it for ward, up over her right wing with a lazy kick, nabbed it with her jaws, and gulped it down whole: breakfast. Well, sort of breakfast, though it came in the middle of her stint as raft-puller. Six more hours, the sun would hit its zenith, Kyan would wake up—or more accurately, Sniper would thump his shoulder until he woke up—and fly out to take over the great honor of pulling the raft so that Morrigan could get twelve hours of sleep and wake up at midnight to take over from him, and so on.
“On the up side, my flight muscles are getting quite exceptionally strong, and I am getting very good at fi shing,” the dragon remarked to the empty air. “On the downside, I never get to get up to mischief with my mate and I end up talking to myself instead of another actual person.” She would have shrugged except that it could have interfered with her currently straight and level flight. “It could be worse; I could be talking to my meals. At least I don’t have Kyan’s shift; I’d spend half of it flying straight into the sun, but he claims it’s easier than waking up at midnight. I myself have never seen him happy to wake up no matter what time of day or night it is, though I will admit he can be admirable at hiding it.”
“Are you grousing again?”
Morrigan frowned at the familiar thought-voice. “You should be sleeping, my dashingly desirable, annoying mate.”
“I heard my name. Were you saying nasty things about me?”
“Even if I was, no one would hear me. Kyan, you really should be sleeping.”
“I never get to talk to you anymore. I’d rather talk than sleep.”
Morrigan sighed to herself. “But you have to fly for twelve hours this afternoon. Remind me how far away we calculated Wost to be from the Byrd capital.”
“That was the thing, we couldn’t figure it out.”
“But the raft is too small for both of us, which means that this pattern has to con tinue until one of us drops or we fi nd land.” Morrigan glanced over her shoulder, but Kyan hadn’t moved from his curled sleeping position.
“One of us could swim.”
“Lovely thought, Kyan, considering how cold this water is.”
“I’m full of lovely thoughts, how about this one. I think I’m molting.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem considering that the raft cannot hold both of us at the same time, so even if we were amorously inclined during the time period in which you are fertile—which would be utterly and unforgivably stupid—I doubt we’d get any where before we sunk the ship.”
“If I’m not molting,” Kyan went on, “then I have some sort of strange malady causing my skin and scale-feathers to become discolored and dry.”
“A third lovely thought: you are full of them. This malady going to prevent you from fl ying?”
“I don’t think so, at least not yet. Nothing’s fallen off so far.”
“You’re going to lose body parts?”
“Well, scales,” he clarified, “and dragon wings are made of tough, feather-like scales.”
“That would be inconvenient. I can’t fly continuously.”
“Which is why I’ll have to swim while you sleep.”
“You’ll freeze to death, which would make me very put out.”
“You’ll sleep during the day so I’ll be in the water when the sun is out, and able to haul out at night, when you fly, though we’ll lose time.”
“Look, you haven’t lost scales yet, and you might be able to fl y with fewer feathers than you have, birds do.” Morrigan thought hard, remembering the book she’d read once on falconry. “Birds molt and grow feathers in certain patterns so that, although they get all new feathers, they never lose their essential ones all at once, so they can always fly, the exception being some waterfowl that drop all their flight feathers while at their breeding lakes, which is no hardship because they’re good swimmers, and then—”
“We aren’t birds, Morrigan.”
“Don’t ruin the good theory. What is it you’re always telling me about having hope?”
“! at was when you were suicidal and thinking of leaving me.”
“I’m always suicidal and thinking of leaving you,” she retorted, “but whenever I look at you I lose my nerve.”
“Besotted.”
“Absolutely.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“You go to sleep. I fl y until noon. You take over. Repeat.”
Kyan paused for a moment. “Yes, that has been the plan we’ve been operating on for the past two—”
“And it’ll keep working until something changes. Thanks for the warning. Go to sleep.”
“You know I really love you when you’re sassy. Don’t suppose you could fi nd us an island for a quick stop-over?”
She snorted. “You’re molting, dolt: bad idea. I, for one, am hoping for a whole lot more sea, a few weeks worth, until your molt is long over. ! at book of Ahebban’s said it would take a week or so, and then another fertile week after that, so two more weeks sounds great to me. And here I was a few minutes ago wishing this trip was over. Now, go to sleep.”
“Yes, mother.”
Morrigan stifled a growl and the urge to snap at him. “I heartily hope that no one ever calls me ‘mother.’”
“Oh yes, sorry, forgot. Going to sleep now.”
His thought-voice faded out and Morrigan tried to put her mind back to flying, hoping that whatever was plaguing Kyan was just a molt, and not some kind of illness. She felt as irritable as the others were getting. At least she and Kyan got exercise. All the humans in the party could do was sit, fi sh, sleep, and stretch a bit—actually, that wasn’t strictly true. Leigh and Matilda could do quick flights since they’d both merged with birds, giving them wings and altering their skeletal and muscular systems, among others, enough so that those wings were perfectly functional, but they couldn’t keep up with either dragon for long, so their fl ights were, by necessity, short.
Elli and Sniper were the worst. For their sake Morrigan wished the voyage would be over soon. They needed green hills on the horizon for those two, before someone got knocked off the raft, and since Elli had both weight and strength advantage over Sniper, Morrigan could well imagine who would be taking an unwilling bath.