Chapter Two
There was only so long Anya could keep screaming until she decided that her breath was wasted. It didn't do anything to improve the situation.
Then there was the other peculiar thing. First off, Anya had never imagined that you could get dragons with wings. Wyrms didn't fly. But this thing did. So he... wasn't a wyrm?
“Are you done screaming yet?” he said, sounding rather irritated. “Because I have sensitive ears, and really, you're not doing yourself any favors.”
She didn't bother responding to him. Her heart throbbed painfully, and now that she could peek through his talons, she saw the ground a long way off, and the tops of trees and rolling hills. He could flex his claws and crush her to death, or release them and drop her to her death. Screaming at him to release her didn't seem like the best idea right now.
“Well? Aren't you going to say anything? Hello? It's considered polite to talk to your rescuers.”
Rescued? Anya blinked her brown eyes in confusion. Her terrified, sluggish mind tried catching up with his words. Hard to think with her blood pounding so fast, with her limbs shaking like wheat in a strong breeze. Hard to think when you were trapped in the claws of a fucking dragon, thousands of feet in the air.
Part of her fear melted, enough to unblock her throat and provide the dragon with words. “You say you rescued me?”
“Didn't I? I mean, I can fly back and drop you in the woods again if you want. But I'm pretty sure I saw a bunch of wyrms chasing you, and that you were on your last legs, trying to get away. And in a dreadful state. I might have to take several baths after handling you. As for you – I'll be sticking your head under the water until you're squeaky clean. Don't you peasants ever clean yourselves?”
His rapid chatter confused her. She didn't have conversation with dragons. Especially not ones that seemed to like the sound of their own voices. Her exhausted mind tried to wrap itself around the concept that he seemed to think he'd saved her.
“What will you... do with me?”
The dragon was silent a moment. His wings batted through the air, buffeting the wind on either side. His body lurched forward with every beat, as he propelled himself through the air. “Plenty of things. I plan to take you home first. I live in a drake and human settlement called Tarn. I'll take you there first, get you scrubbed up and fed, because you look like a disgusting shit monster, and then we'll see what to do from there. Put you into one of the programs we have running for the humans, helping rehabilitate them from wyrm slave conditioning.”
Drakes? Rehabilitation? What?
“What's a drake?”
“Why,” the dragon said, vastly amused, “me. I'm a drake. You know, with the flappy wings and sexy scales. Wait. You've never seen a drake before?” When she didn't answer, he made a tsking sound in his throat. “You really are isolated, aren't you? Okay, quick lesson. There are wyrms. Big ugly things that don't like anyone. There are drakes like me, who don't wish to see humans turned into slaves. And humans. Clear enough so far?”
Anya closed her eyes, too exhausted to care, to think. He seemed to sense this, and let out a rattling sigh.
“I'll tell you later. Let's get you back. But please trust me when I say I'm your ally. Drakes are actually supportive towards your kind. And I don't want to see you dead at the hands of those wyrms.”
Anya nodded, even though he couldn't see it. It wasn't like she had a choice, anyway. She was stuck in this drake's talons, whether she trusted him or not. “Okay.”
She kept her eyes closed, before a question popped to mind. She cleared her throat and shouted through his talons, “Why do you care... if I live or die?”
He dipped in the air, causing her stomach to lurch. “Someone has to,” he eventually said. “And others of my kind agree.”
What a novel concept. Dragons that cared. Anya's world view began slowly crumbling. She always thought... she always assumed that the world was black and white. Cruel wyrms, and suffering humans. Yet, being in the sky right now, she instantly realized that the world was a lot bigger than she expected.
She'd never left the plantation. For all her talk of freedom, of making a new life for herself, she’d never found the courage to leave her prison.
Perhaps she was as much a coward as the rest of her people. That idea sank her heart, and again made tears stab at her eyes. The tears came harder when she remembered the people she left behind, their fates unknown. They'd essentially sacrificed themselves to ensure her survival. Six people for one. Didn't seem like much of a fair trade.
“What's your name, human?” The drake had a soft voice, sounding as if he was one step away from breaking into song. It held a certain poise in it. He also spoke much fancier than her rough plantation accent. More like the wyrms. Except he claimed he was nothing like them. And seemed to dislike them as well.
“Anya,” she said. No last name. Serfs didn't carry last names. Giving her name to him made her feel naked somehow. That name was special. It belonged to her. It was about the only thing that did in these plantations. An honor bestowed to her for making it past ten years of age.
“I'm Kalgrin,” he said. The night air continued to whip around them, and she huddled deeper into the crevice of his talons, using them as a windbreak.
Kalgrin. She committed the name of her savior to mind. She allowed her mind to dare now, to absorb the fact that Kalgrin actually wanted to help.
“Are there places where humans are free?” Her heart twitched at the prospect. “Places where we don't have to worry about wyrms?”
“Yes,” Kalgrin answered. “There are. There are also places where wyrms have a hard time doing things. Such as the town we're going to, because drakes run it.”
“Are there many drakes?”
“Not as many as wyrms.” He let out a sigh at this, which drifted away in the wind. “Or believe me, the world would be a much better place now.”
Huh. How strange. Dragons... helping humans. The concept sounded so alien to her ear. Dragons hated humans. That was what she'd been brought up to believe.
And this Kalgrin... he didn't. He'd scooped her up, smelly and all, with the intention of taking her home and bathing her.
It seemed laughable, and she might have done so had she not been terrified about the fate of her family. She didn't know how to express that to Kalgrin, though, so she remained silent instead.
His strong, melodic voice cut through the darkness, penetrating Anya’s brain. He spoke of something else, but her mind now wandered, no longer paying attention. She examined her filth-caked arms under the stars and moon, realizing she must look like some kind of primeval sludge monster. Not something you wanted to touch. She didn't even want to be in her own skin right now.
When Kalgrin fell silent again, Anya asked the next burning question in her mind. “Why were you lurking in the woods?” It did seem a little suspicious to her somehow that he happened to be there. Especially if he could fly around wherever he wanted. Imagine having wings like this. The places she might go, the hills and forests her eyes would see.
Imagine having such power at her fingertips. A stab of jealously hit her stomach.
This Kalgrin probably didn't realize how lucky he was. To not be a soft, weak human, to have the awesome power of his form and flight. To be able to do anything he wanted. No wonder humans were so easily enslaved, if everything around them possessed more strength, more freedom. It was the way of nature – for the strong to suppress the weak.
A depressing thought, but it made sense.
“Oh, that’s easy,” he replied. A long, red tail whipped in front of her, making her mind jump in surprise. Red? He was red. She struggled to see the color of his scales, encased inside them, but the glint of moonlight there... red like the color of blood. She shivered. “I was planning to make it to the plantation owner’s house and murder him.”
The statement confused Anya. For a moment, she remained utterly speechless. “What?”
“Once he’s dead,” the drake continued, acting as if he didn’t expect her to be stunned, “or just before, the rest of my kind will arrive here to take the rest of you out, and place you in better homes. Unfortunately,” the dragon iterated, “it seems you were being chased for some reason. There's too much attention right now, too many eyes watching the ground and the skies.” He didn’t seem irritated at having to cancel, however.
Slowly, surely, it began to sink in. A drake had saved her. Some type of dragon she had no clue existed. A drake that had every intention of walking into the plantation and murdering the wyrms there. That realization hurt. If she hadn't said anything… if she hadn't tried to prise some life out of the humans… would they be free right now?
No. There's no way I could have predicted something like this. I never even knew he existed. I had no reason to think anything would change. After all, nothing had changed for the first eighteen years of my life. Nothing at all.
Still, a tightness squeezed around her heart.
“I’ll need to quickly intercept the launch point and tell the others to go to the plantation another time, but it’s not a problem.”
All the words sunk in, accumulating to one, incredible idea. He really did help humans. He really fucking did.
Incredible. And just like that, some of the tension leached out of her muscles. She no longer held that fear of being dropped, of being taken someplace awful as he did nefarious things to her.
Still wasn't safe yet, though. And she still didn't understand this drake's purpose in doing something that so obviously benefited humans, and crippled fellow dragons.
Best not to complain about that yet. Although... “I still have to ask. Wyrms see us as dirt beneath their toes. What stops you from thinking the same?”
He let out a long, dry chuckle, only too happy to explain.
“For a drake, the measure of our kind is not in how we treat our equals, but in how we treat our inferiors,” he responded. “Wyrms, unfortunately, don’t really see you as sentient beings. Drakes do. We have human forms for a reason.” The dragon paused for a moment, then wrinkled his nose. “You really smell, though. Sorry.”
“I had to go through a privy to escape,” Anya replied, slightly wry. He dipped, rolling her out of the section of talons that shielded her. The wind was really cold. It dried the stuff on her, which made her partially worry that she'd never be able to get it off.
“Your turn, little human. May I ask why you needed to escape? You must have done something pretty bad for those wyrms to decide they'd prefer you dead.”
A sense of betrayal seethed. “I was sold out by another human. For encouraging people not to be weak.”
The dragon made a tch sound. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Don’t like our serfs thinking for themselves and all that. Another human sold you out?” He fell silent a moment. “Poor wretch.”
“You're calling him poor? He sold me for some extra meals! My family...” the phrase choked in her throat. “My family might be dead because of him. He doesn't deserve to be called human.”
“A novel concept,” Kalgrin said. “To think that someone doesn't deserve to be one, when for all intents and purposes, you are the lowest of the low.”
“There's always lower.” Anya's words came out a whisper, whisked away by the wind, but he heard. “We're already low enough. We don't need to be the animals they think we are.”
Kalgrin let out a barking laugh. “Truer words have never been spoken.” He sped up, his wings thumping on either side of the air. “And don't worry about your family for now. I intend to return. We'll find out what happened to them then.”
It was the best he could offer. She couldn't persuade him to bring her back, not when the wyrms likely still searched for her, and bristled with anger. She didn't know the fate of her family, but it was pointless to imagine. To fret over it. She did, anyway, and raised her hands to her lips, intending to bite them in anxiety, before stopping.
Yeah. Maybe not.
How far did Kalgrin need to fly? Far away from her masters, for sure. Far away from her life, which already seemed so distant, though just this afternoon, she'd been hacking away with that accursed scythe, plotting murder in her soul.
Needing a distraction from the dark cesspit of her thoughts, she again peered out at the world above and below her. She didn’t see much of the stars from inside Kalgrin’s talons. The world below her was dark, lit only in small patches by lights. Hard to see anything now as night strengthened its grip. Clouds began to flit over the moon, obscuring the stars bright enough for them to see.
Exhaustion snapped at her soul. All that fear, worry, and potential grief, along with the bone-breaking work of a long harvest, caught up with her. The tears had long since dried on her dirty face. Not knowing what else to do, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She tossed and turned in Kalgrin's talons, finding them uncomfortable.
She didn’t enjoy the dreams that came with her fitful sleep. Dreams of her whole family slaughtered, sightless eyes facing the ceiling, their hut trashed, as the wyrms continued looking for her. She dreamed of herself as the dissenter, the one who dared envision a different future from the one they held. She saw the traitor as well, some nameless plantation worker with his sly, mean little eyes, prepared to fuck over the lives of everyone else for the sake of it. The wyrms with their sinuous, wingless bodies looming above the tiny human village, jaws snapping in the dark, eyes a bloody red as they searched.
These nightmares felt disturbingly close to real life for Anya.
Something else appeared in her dreams as well. Other voices, not ones she recognized. Arms holding her, saying they needed to pick another time.
Another time? Another time for what? Still, it made for a better dream than before. And she swore she no longer felt the rough talons encasing her body, or the wind whistling through the small gaps, or the cold seeping into her bones.
She jerked herself fully awake when loud, clopping noises rent the air. To her surprise, she found herself in the arms of someone who walked along a cobbled street. Tall stone and wooden houses leaned on either side, and a horse-drawn carriage clattered past. A man sat in the driver's seat, his face tainted by shadow, though gaslights illuminated the entire street. She even saw stone walls around the houses that reached five times as high as she suspected Kalgrin to stand. Perhaps they protected the people inside. Or prevented them from escaping.
Wait. She was in someone's arms? Kalgrin in his human form? She strained to look, cheeks flushed slightly at the notion. One arm looped in the crook of her legs, below her knees. The other supported her just under her armpits, and her head rested against the cushion of his shoulder.
She didn't get a great view of him – just a glance of chin at first. Then he adjusted his head to face Anya for a moment. She caught clever gray eyes, a straight, angular face that gave him a thin jawline, and a charming smile that displayed pristine, sharp canines. She blinked in surprise.
He's handsome! And then there was her, a thing yanked straight out of a bog.
Oh no. He was carrying her. Her with all the filth upon her body.
“Good early morning, my little mud monster,” Kalgrin said, grinning with those brilliant teeth. “Welcome to Tarn. My house is over there.”
They approached a small house up a slope, made out of reddish stone, visible from the street lights that decorated the lanes.
“Were you talking with people earlier?”
“Oh? Yes. I had to call the attack off, remember? Since I rescued you.”
Right. She did remember.
“You look worried.”
“I...” Anya flushed, glad he couldn't see it in the thin light. The gas lamps didn't cover everything. “I'm... dirty.”
“And?”
“And? Obviously I'm spreading my filth to you as well.”
“It doesn't matter. But we are giving you a bath. And a bunch of buckets, I think.”
The kindly expression, the attractiveness of his features left her dumbfounded and embarrassed of the state she was in. Even though keeping herself ugly was the best survival tactic anyone like her could ever have – and she couldn't really help accumulating all this mess in her bid to escape – she never expected someone to carry her in his arms. He did wrinkle his nose at her scent, but otherwise didn’t seem completely repulsed. If anything, he acted cheerful of the fact he cradled a mud monster to his chest.
He must be insane.
“I’m afraid I don’t have any clothes for women at my place, so please excuse me for that.” He gently put her down, making sure she didn't fall onto her knees. He grabbed out of his pant pocket a key, and turned it in the lock. The door clicked open and he walked into his house, declaring he’d get the bucket of water filled up and ready for her to scrub.
Walking into the place, it didn’t strike Anya as belonging to someone wealthy. She saw cracked stone walls, then Kalgrin turned on lights to illuminate the place, revealing a small sitting room with three armchairs, a straw mat, a hearth, and a desk with papers on it – not that Anya could read such things. She saw a bottle of ink and a quill, and a picture on the wall of a simplistic rendition of a mountain with fencing around it. She nodded at it, before being led to a small washroom.
“It’s not much, but I don’t see the point of having a big home when I spend most of my time outside,” Kalgrin said. He gave Anya a wink, before handing her clothes, a scrubbing brush, and pointing to a small copper tap. “We can get a limited amount of hot water from this a day, about half a tubful.” He indicated an iron-rimmed wooden bucket which went above Anya’s knees. “Use this for your initial rinsing, finish with the bath. Take your time, use soap if you want some extra freshness, and I’ll get you something to eat. Bread and butter okay?”
“It’s fine,” she said with a smile, though feeling awkward all the same. With the door closed in the small washroom, she observed the strange seat in the corner which, when opened, showed water swilling at the bottom. Oh. She’d heard about these. It was like a privy, right? You sat on it, did your business, and yanked the chain afterwards, washing the smell away.
Far more sophisticated than what she was used to. Less chance of using it as an emergency escape.
Truthfully, even though Kalgrin left her to her own devices to clean up, Anya hadn't done a proper cleaning for a long time. She knew how to, but her memories clung like cobwebs in her mind, needing a good dusting.
No one should know what she looked like under all that grime. It made people want to do bad things. She trembled at the thought, and worried for one frantic moment that it might change Kalgrin's attitude towards her. She hesitated for far too long by the bathtub, before filling the bucket up with cold water.
Cleaning up took a while. The first bucket of water fast became murky, and she needed about two more cold buckets until she’d scrubbed herself down and daubed herself in soap.
She then used cold water twice more, not bothering with Kalgrin's hot water, though she still didn't quite feel clean. Then, because the idea of hot water was a novelty to her, she eventually conceded and ran the bath, allowing the water to turn hot. She watched the steam curl up from the copper. Tested the water a few times, mixed it with cold, then dipped herself in with a sigh.
Oh, wow. I've... mmm. What an amazing experience. She tilted her head back in bliss and allowed herself to soak up this bliss for a little longer. Then she scrubbed at her arm again.
She saw her skin perfectly now, and her brown hair, trailing in the water like algae.
Strange. She’d only been truly clean in her childhood, back when her mother was concerned about them catching illness through bad hygiene. Anya didn’t know much about diseases, only that diseases were attracted to dirt and bad hygiene. Kendra knew a thing or two about it, though she said it was all down to common sense. In fact, the only thing Kendra insisted on having her children do each day was to make sure their hands were washed, and any wounds they accumulated cleaned out and covered, to make sure infection didn't set in.
Anya knew her mother had likely saved their lives on more than one occasion like that, since she'd seen even fit, strong people die from infections.
Eventually, with a reluctant sigh, since the water turned from hot to warm, Anya splashed herself out. She used the towel in the washroom to dry herself out and marveled when no specks of dirt revealed themselves, but a lot of her skin flaked off. Underneath all those layers of dirt, when she looked at herself in the mirror by the sink, was a brown-eyed, dark-haired woman with an oval face, a smattering of freckles across her face, and a shy smile. Her teeth were stained a little yellow, which now made her scratch at them. She used to chew mint to freshen her breath and use dock paste to help clean them out, but she didn’t really get many opportunities to look after herself on the plantation.
Being able to tidy up at any point amounted to a reward of sorts. So, this is the face that men want, Anya thought, not quite sure how or why. Mother said they'd have surely taken me if I didn't act like an urchin. With her breasts unbound, they slumped just in front of her chest. She had wide, child-bearing hips, as her mother liked to say. Another thing men find attractive. Anya wasn’t the tallest person around, which annoyed her – most of the other serfs reached loftier proportions. Even the kids managed to surpass her early.
Being clean, though, felt good. Smelling the fresh soap, with a hint of something fruity, not that Anya knew what type of fruit it represented, pleased her. She looked at her dirty clothes, unwilling to touch them again. She wrapped a towel around herself and left the bathroom. Then, taking a deep breath, Anya walked into the living room and asked if Kalgrin had anything for her to wear, like a large shirt she could use as a gown. Her heart fluttered awkwardly the whole while, as if she expected Kalgrin to morph into that hand-grabbing beast her mother claimed all men were.
He turned in his seat to regard her, having been ruffling his light brown hair, and his jaw actually dropped.
“Well, fuck me,” he said. “Look who was hiding underneath all that dirt.”
For some reason, the compliment made Anya blush, but also feel self-aware of the notion she only had a towel separating her from Kalgrin’s gray-eyed gaze.
“Well, it’s not like you can see much of me underneath several layers of shit, is it?”
“No,” he said, smiling. “That is indeed true. You know, I’m surprised you…” then he stopped, “no, that’s rude of me, I’m sorry for that.”
“You're surprised that I what?”
He licked his lips, drumming the side of his armchair. “I’m surprised you weren’t a captive in the wyrm’s house. They like to take the pretty ones.”
“I know,” Anya said, not offended at all. He only echoed what her mother and most of the other adults said. “I did everything I could to make myself ugly. And it worked. Did I look remotely attractive to you earlier?”
He chuckled. “I see your point.”
“Most women try to do that. Some even stuff clothes down their pants to make it look like they have cocks.” Her cheek temperature rose as she said this. She thought it a great idea from the women, but saying this in front of Kalgrin made her notions absurd. She didn't want to mention cock in front of him. She didn't want to steer the conversation towards anything that might even hint at sexuality.
“Smart,” Kalgrin said. He nodded his approval. “Dragons keep thinking you lot are incapable of doing anything for yourselves, but you find ways around the system. You may be battered, you may be beaten, but there’s still things you do.” He seemed rather pleased with the fact.
He's got such a bright smile. Like it could blind me if I stare at it for too long. Anya kept getting impulses to move around, just so she could inspect Kalgrin from every angle possible. To see what he appeared like from the side and back, if that nose was as sharp as it looked. It irritated her in a way that he looked so attractive. Dragons weren't supposed to be attractive. Yet something in her stomach swirled anyway, making her uncomfortable. It kind of squirmed in there like some caterpillar. Not nice at all. Maybe she was getting her blood early? That usually caused stomach upsets.
Or maybe she was coming down with a fever, given that her cheeks seemed to be permanently flushed.
“Yes. We do small things like this to try and make our lives easier. It doesn’t change, though. We’re too afraid, and they always find ways to get at us, no matter how careful we are.” Anya closed her eyes for a moment. The anger passed through her in a wave. “I know you told me to stop worrying about the fact that something has happened to my family, but I can't. It's... it's my fault they might be dead. It squeezes me here.” She tapped her chest, indicating the guilt.
Kalgrin's eyes lightly trailed over her towel, before resting on her face. “How many family members do you have?”
“Six.”
He whistled. “That's a lot.”
“Human women tend to have a lot of children on the plantation. It's my grandpa, my ma, and my four younger sisters and brothers. None of my siblings have names yet.”
Kalgrin seemed to find this concept hard to grasp. “No names? Why?”
“If they survive to their tenth birthday, they get a name.”
“Ah.” He fell silent and solemn at this. The awful truth of it seemed to linger in the air, reminding them of the high human mortality rate. Of the sheer hopelessness of their situation. “That makes a wretched kind of sense. Still horrible, though.”
“I give them names, anyway. The babies are Chub and Podge. The older ones are Tantrum and Sniffles.”
“Nice.” He smiled fondly. “My mother did that with some kittens she planned to sell. She knew she wasn't supposed to name them, but she did anyway. Lazy, Stupid, and Adventurous. Still hold a special place in her heart.”
On one hand, it seemed demeaning to be compared to kittens. On the other hand, it did make sense.
“You have family?” Everyone had family, of course. But not everyone knew them.
“Yes. Mother and father. Drakes. Only child. Drakes don't tend to have a lot of children. Same with wyrms, actually. My parents live in a neat little house in the Frostlands. Which is a long way from here. I visit them every now and then.”
“Do they share your attitude to humans?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You don't think I naturally started liking them, do you?”
Anya shrugged. She wouldn't know. Kalgrin's eyes flicked over her again. She looked down upon her body, which Kalgrin kept discreetly skimming. Right. She needed clothes. She was probably quite distracting like this. And yes, her cheeks had definitely increased in temperature. Maybe she should ask him for some medicine. “So, about that shirt you were offering me?”
Now Kalgrin's cheeks brightened slightly. “Oh! Yes. Of course. Follow me, my towel-wrapped friend. I’ll show you where you can sleep as well. It'll probably be a better nap than in my claws.”
Kalgrin beckoned her over, and she paced towards a double bed through a door to the left of the house. It lay nearby the washroom, with clothes slung haphazardly over a chair.
“This is actually my bedroom, so if you'll excuse the mess...”
For one second, wild panic stopped Anya's heart, before Kalgrin added, “I’ll be sleeping on the floor in the living room, since I only have one bed. Now, let me see…” He began rummaging through a chest of drawers, pulling out a baggy shirt that looked like a tent. “Here. Do you want underwear, too? I have some shorts…” He took out some white shorts and tossed them her way. “I didn't actually get around to making your delicious toast and butter meal yet, but I will now. The bread's a little stale, so it'll be better burnt. Come into the living room in a few minutes.” He gave her a little wink, then ducked out of the room and closed the door.
Anya's heart slowly returned to its normal pace. For one insane second, she'd believed Kalgrin intended to sleep in the same bed as her. Which meant him doing male things. Male things that resulted in babies.
Why the fuck had she thought that? Gods, her mother had corrupted her thinking on this. Kalgrin might be a male, but that didn't mean he had uncontrollable urges to fuck things.
She knew... well, it made sense men and women got attracted to one another. Something needed to happen to keep the babies coming. But people also practised self-control. Anya felt attraction all the time in the plantation, but she chose to control it.
She didn't want to risk bringing any children into such a miserable world. She didn't fault those who did, because maybe having something to love made it better. She just didn't want to be a part of it.
Thank you, Kalgrin. Genuine gratitude flooded into Anya's heart for the first time. Now that she'd let go of her fear and exhaustion, of her instant judgment when it came to dragons, she saw him for what he was. Someone who had gone above and beyond to get her out of there. Someone who had abandoned his plans to keep her safe.
Plans to kill the wyrms. Plans she'd always wanted to execute herself.
Anya took the time to inspect her new room. Honestly, although the appreciation clutched at her heart, she found Kalgrin a hard one to figure out. He just casually chatted to her and did these things for her without a second thought. Like it didn’t even occur to him that she was some kind of lesser being, as wyrms loved to enforce. Even when he’d seen her face-to-face without the dirt and grime of her disguise on, he’d simply admired her, then let her go on her way. Without ravaging her like dragons were supposed to do. Still, that glimmer of interest from him meant her mother was right. She was attractive. To him, anyway.
Thinking about her mother made Anya stare at the bed with an icy fist around her heart. Curses, she needed to just stop. Dead or alive, there was nothing she could do about it for now. Kalgrin had taken her out of that place. He'd freed her.
For the first time, she walked around a place with her shoulders straight rather than hunched. She moved without the terror of being beaten, of being discovered and dragged away. She stood here, washed clean, and didn't dread the reveal of her body. She relished not having her breasts bound, too. That shit hurt.
I'm safe. I'm safer than I've ever been. My mother would be proud of this. She'd be proud to know her daughter made it out.
This thought counted on Kalgrin being the person he said he was. That he'd truly spotted her and made the split decision to save her. And then proceeded to talk her ear off as he carried her through the dark sky. Carried her in his arms as he walked to his little house, let her use his bathtub, and sleep in his only bed. He might not be wealthy, even for a dragon, but he treated her like an equal. Someone worth saving.
The thought sobered her up. Knowing that a complete stranger found her worthwhile. Most humans wouldn't have even bothered. Then again, humans didn't have the power to fly away. If they tried to help her, they'd just end up dying along with her.
It bugged her, somehow. She slipped on the baggy shirt, and tried on the underwear, though she needed to tighten it around the waistband to make it stay up.
She struggled to balance her thoughts, to keep them from imagining horrible things happening to her family. The rawness of that panic still lingered in her soul. Waking up to hear them searching for her. Seeing her mother's frantic movements, understanding the situation before Anya did, and forcing her daughter to escape through the privy.
One way to escape, she supposed.
And this dragon, this drake claimed he was going to kill the owner of the plantation.
If they fought in their dragon forms, Anya didn’t know who would win. The huge wyrm that towered above everything, thrashing with that huge, serpentine tail, scratching with sharp, cruel claws? Or the drake, smaller, more mobile, with thicker scales and an inexplicable animosity towards their cousins?
Protecting humans. There were things out there that actually wanted to help them. Anya lay in Kalgrin’s bed feeling utterly overwhelmed. She spread out her arms, letting her left fingers dangle over the sides. Cracks displayed in the black wooden beams in the ceiling, and she thought she spotted a spider, snuggled up in a groove.
There was just so much she didn’t know about the place she lived in. Her view of the world was limited to the stories upon the plantation, the cruelty of her masters, and a vague idea of the city. Nothing about other types of dragons, or if they liked or hated each other, or if humans lived in areas where they didn’t toil under the whip, or suffer early deaths from abuse and apathy.
Maybe she'd even bumped into a drake in the city, and just didn't realize who they were at all. Wyrms had yellow eyes, after all. Kalgrin's eyes shone an iron gray. The default drake color?
Either way, the lack of knowledge in her head loomed like the dark tunnel in her mind. A place where a shameful gap in her thoughts existed. Part of her wanted to sleep right now – until her stomach gave a growl, reminding her that Kalgrin was busy burning bread in his kitchen.
Sighing, she creaked herself out of bed, her bare feet padding on the smooth wooden floorboards. The aroma of toasted bread permeated her nostrils, and she sniffed in appreciation.
“Aha,” Kalgrin said, giving her an irritatingly charming smile. “For a moment, I was worried you might have fallen asleep. Not that I'd blame you, given all the excitement of tonight.”
She shrugged. “Not until I've had the pleasure of eating your food.”
“Pleasure, huh?” The smile turned into a smirk, before his expression turned grave. As if remembering that it wasn't a good time to smirk. “Here you go. You can take it into your room if you want. I have some books in there if you want to read before sleeping as well... oh. Do you know how to read?”
Anya shook her head. Again, that hollowness tapped at her. Reminding her that she knew so little. “They don't teach slaves to read. But we'd tell stories to one another.”
“That's good. Stories are important. It's how you learn your history, and learn from mistakes of the past.” Kalgrin quickly finished buttering her toast and then smearing a strange red substance over it, which he called strawberry jam. He told her strawberry was a red fruit, and she took his word for it. With her toast prepared, and a glass of water cupped in her hand, she ventured back into the bedroom.
Learn from mistakes in the past. Anya suspected that statement held some special meaning with Kalgrin. Maybe to do with his personal past, or of the past he knew through those books.
As she chewed through her food, smacking her lips in delight at the sweet, tingling texture of the jam, along with the crunch of the toast and the wetness of the butter, she let out a groan.
How could something so simple be so delicious? And this jam – whatever it was, she'd happily eat a whole jar of the stuff.
I wonder what mistake he's made. Why he does the things he claims to do now. Everyone has a story.
Thinking of stories, Anya remembered one her grandpa used to say. One that made people sigh and wish that what he said was true, rather than wistful fancy.
“Once upon a time, we humans used to have magic in our blood,” Grandpa said in that crackly voice of his, as if sandpaper had wedged in his throat, making the words grate out. “Magic so strong that the wyrms quivered in fear. They hated us for the magic, and they sought to take it from our souls. They succeeded through dark and terrible means, and made humans weaklings in comparison to them.”
Anya didn't know how Grandpa knew the story. She just took it for granted that he knew everything.
“But they say one day the magic will return. It can't stay blocked up forever. It is like water. It will find a way through the stones. And humans will rise once again, and take their rightful place in the world.”
It wasn't a story about heroes. It was a stories about villains, about humans being tricked out of their magic, the methods lost to them forever.
Except, Anya knew the idea of humans possessing magic to be ridiculous.
She dreamed about it, sure. Everyone dreamed of a magic solution for their issues at some point.
She just knew better than to attempt to act upon it.
Anya finished her toast, wiped down her fingers with a cloth, and drank the water. She then fell asleep with that deep fear tickling at her consciousness, uncertain if her life really was going to improve, or whether she had moved into a new kind of nightmare. One where she was responsible for the deaths of her entire family. All because she dared to dream, and ignore advice.
All because.