Rhyolite
He reached up to his face, blinking slowly as he pulled slivers from his skin. A particularly long one was covered in blood. It didn’t hurt; in the grand scheme of wounds it was quite petty and small. He would heal in minutes, at the most. His slow, delayed reaction was not built from anger, but more from shock.
Never in his hundreds of years had a woman ever spoken to him like this one. He’d started to adjust to that fact, simply because she was the only woman he’d known. But now she’d struck him with a weapon. Part of him was ready to strike her down now for her insolence and find someone else. But the bloodthirsty instinctive part of him had long ago been the first thing he tamed. It was still strong and occasionally won out, but in non-life-threatening situations, he could maintain control of himself. Like now.
As he slowly plucked at his face, the woman’s skin drained of blood until he thought it was going to match the snow-covered mountain upon which they stood. Only her cheeks were visible under the orange mask she wore over her eyes. He wondered what that was for, even as he enjoyed the fear.
“Are all women as hotheaded as you?” he asked, doing his best to project an aura of fear and intimidation. He wanted to work with this human, for reasons he could not yet identify, but he needed her to calm down.
“No,” she admitted in a tiny-sounding voice. “But most of us don’t appreciate being treated as lower class. I…may have overreacted there. I’m not usually the most vocal about it, but the way you said it was truly insulting and I just…acted. I’m sorry, Rhyolite.”
He considered her words. The apology didn’t sound forced, nor given out of fear. She truly sounded embarrassed about her actions, but not the premise upon why she’d acted. That realization bore some further thinking on his part before he spoke.
She was ashamed of the fact that she’d struck him. This part was understandable, due to the power dichotomy between them. He was a dragon, and she was a human. He was in no danger from her or her kind, whereas they would tremble before him if necessary. It was the other part of her statement that rung with a fierceness to it that was out of place in his mind. He didn’t understand. More information was required.
“Please explain the first part of your statement.”
“Uh.” He could see her eyes focus elsewhere as she replayed it in her mind. “The part about women not appreciating being treated as a lower class?”
“Yes.”
“Women are equal to men,” she stated bluntly. “I don’t know what it was like in your time, but nowadays, we are seen as equal. Men do not own us, order us around, nothing like that.”
There was much she wasn’t saying, but right then it didn’t matter to him.
“Interesting.” He processed that change in his mind. “In my homeland, women were important, a necessary part of our people and the way we functioned. But still not given the same freedoms as men.”
“That is different now. I can own property, I can hold a job. Whatever I wish.”
“I see. I will attempt to respect that then.” He meant what he’d said. One thing Rhyolite had come to the conclusion of as he’d walked down the mountain was that things were going to be different. He wasn’t sure how, or what, but they would be unlike anything he’d known before.
Which meant that he was going to have to change as well. He’d done it before. Once. Upon fleeing his homeland and running north with his tail between his legs, Rhyolite had come into contact with the primitive tribes people of the northern parts of the continent. He’d mostly kept apart from them, but many of them had female-centric alignments at one time or another.
“Okay then. I’m glad we got that settled.” She looked and sounded awkward, and he smiled slightly, realizing she’d probably expected more of a pushback from him.
Perhaps I can surprise you more, he thought with an internal satisfaction at the knowledge that she was thrown off guard by his willingness to adapt.
“But of course, if you’re equal to men now, then I suppose you can take the same punishment as a man for theft.” He tapped a finger on his chin as if thinking. “Now let me see if I remember it correctly.”
“I didn’t steal anything!” she protested with a snort that said plenty on its own. “I was just looking at it. Had no idea what it was I’d found.”
“You would have stolen it if I hadn’t confronted you.”
She thought about that, and then crossed her arms. “How did you get it in the first place?”
Rhyolite already had his mouth open to answer what he’d expected to be a protest. The question of his acquisition of the gold wasn’t something he’d expected nor prepared for. The end result was him left speechless with his mouth hanging open, tongue flapping in the wind.
“That’s what I thought,” she said, shaking her head. “Get off your high horse, mister.” She turned and took several steps back down the mountain. “Now, do you want to see the town or not?”
Rhyolite got a hold of himself and nodded. “Yes. I am famished.”
“I hope you brought some of your gold. Because this isn’t free, and I’m surely not paying for what I suspect is going to be an extraordinary amount of food.”
“Pay?”
“Yes. You know, the exchange of something of value? A merchant will sell you food, and you have to pay for it with goods. In today’s society we call it money or cash. So your gold will get you a certain amount of money, and then you use that to pay for items you want. Food, clothing, etcetera.”
He nodded in understanding. “I am aware of the system. My point was, why would I pay? I am Rhyolite, a dragon. You humans are nothing. I shall simply take what I want.”
In front of him she sagged, her shoulders drooping as she slowed her walk down the mountain slope. Rhyolite frowned at the sight. Obviously his words had disappointed her. Much to his surprise, he found himself unhappy with the prospect of letting her down. That was…unexpected. Why should he care about how a human felt about him? It made no sense.
“You know, you can’t just walk in and take whatever you want.”
“Why not?”
“Well for one, it’s rude and impolite. Secondly, these people work hard for their items. Why should you have the right to just take it? Might makes right is not an acceptable answer,” she added as he opened his mouth to reply.
Rhyolite closed it, once again not having an answer. “Very well.” He didn’t tell her he’d brought some gold anyway, just in case. He liked to be prepared.
“All right then. It’s a good thing I came up here. Letting you walk around town on your own is a dangerous proposition.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him and he met her gaze with his. Their eyes met and he found himself enjoying staring into the stormy gray circles, watching intently as her pupils dilated slightly. It was tough to tell with the wind blowing, but he thought her cheeks might have turned slightly redder as well.
“Watch out.”
“What?” she turned around and yelped as a tree loomed up in front of her. She tried to dodge to the side but lost her balance and started to fall.
“I’ve got you,” he said calmly as he stepped forward at full speed, scooping her up for the second time before she fell into a bank of snow. “All safe.” He turned as he grabbed her, slowing himself down by the simple expedient of using the trunk to stop him. His shoulders slammed into it slightly harder than intended.
Which shook the entire tree, shivering the branches, all of which were laden with snow, dropping it down on the couple. White powder dropped like a stone onto them, burying the two of them up to his waist.
“Smooth.” She spat snow from her face and shook her head to clear it. “That was some rescue.”
He chuckled. They were, for the moment, trapped, her warm body pressed tightly to his chest. The situation wasn’t altogether unpleasant, and he quickly found himself appreciating the slightly sweet fragrance that she was wearing. It was the first pleasant thing he’d smelled besides the fresh air since he’d woken up, and Rhyolite was in no rush to get rid of it.
“Are you just going to hold me like this until the snow melts?” she asked, tapping on his shoulder to get his attention.
“Would you like me to put you down?”
“Please.”
Rhyolite shrugged. “As you wish.” He dropped his arms to his sides.
“HEY!” was all she had time to shout before she sank into the snowbank with very little in the way of grace.
Laughing brightly, he reached down and scooped her up by her shoulders, setting her on her feet. The look on her face made him laugh even harder and he threw back his head.
That’s when she scooped up a huge double-handful of snow and smacked it into his face. Half of it went into his lungs and he doubled over, choking and coughing as he hacked up the white flakes.
It was her turn to laugh as she bulled her way through the snow until it only came up to her shins. “Take that!” she called behind her.
He recovered long enough to pack a snowball—gently—and send it winging toward the back of her head.
“Ack!” she cried out as it impacted, his aim perfect for a change. She stumbled and went down to one knee. Rhyolite thought perhaps he’d hurt her, and started charging forward.
Which is when she stood up, spun, and fired a snowball into his face. So intent was he on ensuring that she wasn’t injured he didn’t get the slightest chance to move out of the way.
“Pth, blth,” he sputtered, spitting snow out.
“Come on!” she shouted with a laugh, beckoning him forward. “Let’s go get food. I’m hungry.”
Rhyolite grinned and bounded after her, clearing the last of the deposited snow and skipping down the slope with ease to catch up.
He liked her. Perhaps sleeping for so long wasn’t such a bad thing after all.