Chapter Twenty

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Chapter Twenty

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Revaramek leapt out of the mud, beating his vast wings. Pain seared across the dragon’s back as damaged flight muscles protested. He pushed through it, ascending above the bog. Globs of mud fell from his wings and tumbled from his body as he rose. He leveled off just above the treetops, and clutched Mirelle to his chest, safe and secure.

Every wingbeat was pain. His wings and the muscles that powered them needed time to heal but Revaramek doubted he was going to get it. As he flew, the rest of his wounds joined in the screaming chorus. Burning, bloodied lines throbbed across his limbs and his neck. Just breathing made his lungs ache. When he coughed, little sparks of agony erupted around them. Probably had cracked ribs. At least he could still breathe.

The sun set behind him as he banked to the east. Daylight’s last throes cast the sky in purple gloam. Clouds outlined in fading pink reflected upon pools of water scattered across the marsh. When last light faded, it was the stars that reflected up at him. A seemingly endless marsh beneath, an ocean of stars above, and in between, nothing but silence.

Mirelle didn’t speak, didn’t complain. After a time, her shivering eased. If not for the fact she began to stroke his chest plates halfway through flight, he’d have thought she lost consciousness. Not that Revaramek had anything to say. He was focused on his flight. The creeping weakness of fatigue gnawed at his body, sapping his strength bit by crushing bit.

Moonlight turned the marsh water to molten silver beneath him as the moon rose. His destination was silhouetted against the silver light. Beyond the first rolling foothills of the mountains, where the terrain grew more rugged, he saw a familiar slab of rock. It rose from the summit of a forested hill, a single flattened spire of gray stone anointing a hidden shelter. It reminded him of an old memory he could scarcely recall, of lines of stone plates all leaning against one another above a hill, in a swamp.

Revaramek swept in just above the treetops. Pines and firs bent beneath his wings. He touched down on a grassy patch, not far from the stone capping the summit. He took a few awkward steps on his hind legs, then gingerly lowered Mirelle down until she was able to get her footing. She felt around with her boots, then stumbled away from him and dropped to her hands and knees.

As Mirelle caught her breath, Revaramek worked his wings in half-circles. They were going to be horribly stiff in the morning. He lifted each limb, stretched it, glanced at some of his wounds. Dried mud clung to his green scales. Every cut and bite burned, and his back ached as though each breath was another impact with the ground.

The dragon limped up alongside Mirelle, gazing down at her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m…not going to vomit, this time…” She took a few slow breaths, staring at the grass beneath her. “I felt…on the way here, it was…different.”

“Good.” He craned his neck, sniffing at the breeze. The scent of water clung to it. “I need to wash this mud from my wounds.” He stretched a sore wing forward. “There is a cave there, beneath the stone. That is where we will shelter.”

Mirelle eased to her feet, gave him a strange look he could not decipher, and then trudged up the hill towards the cave. When he was sure she was going the right direction, he turned the other way and limped across the forested hillside. At the base of the hill was a stream with a few deep pools. Insects buzzed, and nearer the water, frogs chirruped. They fell silent as the dragon approached.

Revaramek found a bend in the river where there was a pool deep enough to wash himself. He sloshed into it, then belly flopped into the cool water. The water up in the hills and mountains was always colder and clearer than the water in his marsh. He lowered his muzzle to it, and lapped it up in big gulps. It had been nearly the whole day since he’d eaten, and yet until the water reached his belly he didn’t feel the least bit hungry. He sure as hell wasn’t going out hunting now. The dragon needed water more than he needed food, anyway.

The cold water made his many wounds sting worse as he washed them. Revaramek hissed in pain, but forced himself to clean each wound he could find. He rolled over in the water, and against the many pained disputes his body offered, rolled about in the pool to wash his bruised back and tattered wings.

Once he was clean, Revaramek slunk out of the water and into a patch of moonlight. He surveyed himself, taking stock of his injuries. Most of them were superficial, at least by the standards of a dragon. Lots of claw gashes and bite marks across his limbs, his neck, and head. Wings rent here and there from smashing through buildings and broken glass. Bruises to his belly and hind legs and tail. Revaramek licked every open wound he could reach. A dragon’s saliva helped prevent infection, something his mother taught him long, long ago. Dragons healed swiftly, and with any luck, all the wounds Aylaryl had given him would be nothing but fading scars in a few weeks.

When he’d done all he could, Revaramek limped back up the hill. He growled through grit teeth, his spines pinned back in pain. He could damn near feel his lungs shifting back and forth with every step. At least he wasn’t coughing up any more blood. That had to be a good sign, right? He rubbed chest with a paw, grimacing and wondering if Mirelle had saved his life.

Near the hilltop, the entrance to a small cavern lay beneath the imposing stone wall. Revaramek sniffed around it, pleased to find Mirelle’s scent. At least she’d gone the right away Then he inspected the entrance gaping in the stone. It didn’t look as big as he remembered. He glanced back at himself, considering his own width. He squeezed his wings as tightly to his sore body as he could. The cavern got bigger inside, at least.

Revaramek took a deep breath, and forced himself through the hole in the stone. Granite scraped against his wings, pressed against his scales. He hissed, and dug his hind claws into the earth. He flexed his hind legs and forced himself through the hole. When he popped free, he stumbled a few paces, only to bang his nose against the rock at the back of the cave.

“Ow!” He jerked his head back, and flopped onto his haunches, groaning. “I remember this cave being bigger.”

“Revaramek.” Mirelle’s voice was a whisper, hoarse and trembling. “How old are you?”

Revaramek eased up to his paws, swung his haunches away from Mirelle, and sat down again to face her. His singular horn scraped the ceiling and he lowered his head. “I don’t know, Mirelle. Haven’t really kept track. I think you’re right, though. I was much younger the last time I came here.”

“You act like a child.” There’s no malice in Mirelle’s voice, but something haunted hung in her whispered words, as if she’d just stumbled upon the answer to some great mystery she’d never wanted to solve. “You don’t…know anything about how to act, and…everything is some game. You get…so excited about stories and going indoors. Your whole knowledge of the world, it’s based on tales and how…how could you know how to act if no one’s ever…”

“Mirelle, you’re rambling.” Revaramek lowered his head, staring at her in the dim light. She sat against the cavern wall, with her knees up to her chest, her arms around them, and with an old, tattered blanket draped around her shoulders. “And I doubt that blanket has served any purpose since my last visit other than a rat’s nest.”

“Have you ever had a friend?” Mirelle clutched the blanket tighter around herself despite his warning. She stared into space, her gaze piercing through him and the stone beyond.

“Of course I have.” Revaramek arched his neck. “Who wouldn’t want to befriend their benevolent overlord?”

“Have you ever heard anyone call you their friend?” Mirelle’s voice trembled, cracked. She swallowed, blinking a few times.

“Yes, I had friends.” Revaramek cocked his head, an unpleasant chill coiling in his belly.

“Before the truce, or after?”

“Before.” Revaramek replied without thinking. His own answer made his heart hurt.

“But…after?” Mirelle sniffled, turning her gaze up to him now. “You haven’t…have you?”

Revaramek whimpered, glancing at the exit. He had half a mind to squeeze himself right back through that hole before she could dig her claws any deeper into his heart. “I don’t want to talk about this, Mirelle.”

“Please, Revaramek.” Mirelle sniffed again, lifting her head. “After all that’s happened…I need to know.”

Revaramek grit his teeth, a wave of pain and anger rising in him. “Please don’t push me.”

“I don’t want to push you. I just…” A tear left a wet streak across the dried mud on her face. She glanced away, sighing. “I just want to understand.”

Revaramek heaved a sigh, his sore wings drooping. He stared down at his paws. A few of the wounds were bleeding again after his trip to the stream and back. “Very well. The truce makes it…difficult for me. I have had friends but they are…far away. The maidens don’t visit, anymore. And I haven’t seen other dragons in my domain for years. Or gryphons or…anyone.”

“How…how old were you when…” Mirelle tugged the ragged, threadbare blanket further around herself. “When…”

“When they caught me?”

Mirelle gave a silent nod.

“Young.” Revamamek swallowed, his tail coiling. A stubborn lump formed itself in his throat. Memories of terrible pain and unfathomable fear made his belly clench. “Adult, I think, but young. I do not know my years. I had conquered and mated but I was still growing.” He lifted a wounded paw, stared at it through bleary eyes. “Maybe I still am. We may grow our whole lives. Aylaryl is bigger now than she was when we were lovers.”

“I understand.” Mirelle’s voice shook, and as if following suit, her body trembled. “And since then, you haven’t…”

“For a time, there were other dragons, and gryphons in my lands. But they…feared to share my fate. Every few years I sneak off to someone else’s lands, to seek out old friends and remind myself that someone cares for me, but…” He closed his eyes, licked his nose, and dragged his claws against the stone floor. “But no. Since the truce, no one from the village that binds me has ever called me their friend.”

Mirelle sniffed, and took a shuddering breath. “Why…why don’t you just…leave?”

“The marsh is my home, Mirelle. I love it.” He lifted a paw again, splaying it to show her the webbing between his fingers. “It’s part of me, it’s in my blood, I’m made for it. I won’t be driven from my home. You…you don’t know how much she sacrificed to get me somewhere so beautiful, so safe. I won’t leave it.” He set his paw back down, forced himself to give Mirelle a smile in the dim light. “Your people are stuck with me.”

“I’m sorry.” Mirelle’s wrapped her arms around her knees again. The blanket fell from her shoulders.

“For what?”

“For everything.” She pressed her face to her knees, her voice half muffled. “For how things turned out for you, in your life. For how I…” He shoulders shook. “For how I treated you.”

“You don’t need to apologize.” Revaramek grit his jaws, an upwelling of warm tightness squeezing his heart, closing his throat. He growled to clear his throat, blinked away the sudden bleariness from his eyes. “You only treated me like an asshole because I act like one.”

Revaramek had meant that to comfort her. But it seemed he was as terrible at offering comfort as he was at polite behavior, because whatever dam held back most of Mirelle’s tears finally burst. She lifted her head from her knees, only to press her face into her hands as a long, ragged sob erupted. She shook her head, muddy black curls swishing. She worked her mouth, but no words came out, only twisted, pained sounds.

The dragon whined, curling his neck into an S. Why was she crying? What had he done now? He whimpered in sympathy, confusion and sorrow weighing down his own powerful heart. “I’m sorry, Mirelle.”

“No!” Mirelle cried out as if he’d struck her. “No, please, whatever you are, Revaramek, please don’t be sorry now!”

Revaramek only whimpered again, his frills sagging around his head. The more she cried, the worse the dragon felt. Guilt was an emotion he barely knew, but now it hung over him like a pall. “I just…wanted to make you feel better…I…I dunno what I’m doing wrong, Mirelle.”

“Nothing!” Mirelle jerked her head up, her wet eyes wide and shining when they caught the moonlight. She eased up and came to him, then sank onto her knees before the dragon, forcing words through her tears. “Please…don’t talk. Just listen.”

Revaramek sniffled and swallowed, nodding.

Mirelle set her hand atop one of his forepaws. He lifted it, and she enclosed it in her hands. Her touch was warm, and comforting. It was the sort of touch he’d known and cherished years ago, yet sometimes tried to forget. The more he remembered such simple comforts, the more he missed them.

“I have been…horrible…to you.” Mirelle’s words were all scattered and broken, as if she had to seek them out in the darkness and piece them together. “I…I didn’t…understand. But…I think I’m starting to. I treated you…like…and now you’re…hurt, and…” She looked up at him, her eyes darting from wound to wound. “Everyone thinks you’re some delusional beast! And I’ve been terrible to you! And now you’re…you’re covered in blood!” Her face twisted up as she fought a sob. “For me! For us! You…you almost…I thought you’d killed yourself, for me! I…I’m…sorry, I’m so sorry! I’m…”

When she struggled to push more words past her sobs, Revaramek hesitantly pulled his paw away from her hand. He moved it towards her, and when she did not resist, he gently rubbed her back. She didn’t need to say anything more. In response, she pressed herself against him, hiding her face.

“It’s…alright, Mirelle.” Though Revaramek scarcely knew how to tell her, her apology was appreciated immensely. He stretched a wing forward, and draped it across her to comfort her while she cried, the way his mother used to do for him. “It’s alright.”

Revaramek blinked away tears of his own, stroking her back as she cried. He hardly know how to comfort someone, and as much of a mess as he’d made of things a moment earlier, he hoped he was doing a better job now. At least he knew there was comfort to be found in a wing’s embrace among dragons. He just hoped Mirelle would find the same measure of peace in the gesture he once had.

As Mirelle’s sobs quieted, and the shaking of her body eased, Revaramek gazed through the exit to the moonlit night. The water in the distance was black, and still, like polished obsidian. The moon and stars reflected across it, a pale imitation of the unreachable sky. There was a time in his youth, after they reached the marsh, when he first glimpsed the stars. He’d never seen them before that. He remembered one long, silent night where he laid awake alongside his mother, and stared at the sky long after she’d grown quiet. How many wondrous lights there were, as if guide them through their beautiful new world.

Loneliness, bitter and terrifying, and of the like he’d not known for years suddenly hit the dragon. Even with Mirelle crying against him, wrapped in his wing, he felt cold, and alone, lost and unwanted. Revaramek was crying before he could stop himself. His wings shook against his body, his body trembled. He pulled his paw away from Mirelle to wipe his eyes. His frills burned, his throat ached from clenching.

“Revaramek?” Mirelle eased back and stared up at him.

“I miss her.” Revaramek turned his head away, wanting to hide it beneath his wing. Mirelle was the last person he wanted to see him crying.

“W…who?” The trembling sorrow in Mirelle’s voice told him she already the answer.

“My mother.” His voice shattered, and with it, his resolve.

Revaramek curled forward against the floor, covering himself with his wings. Gods, how he missed her. It was ages now, and a wound he thought long healed. But in that moment, comforting Mirelle, looking at the stars, it was all so fresh again. And once more he felt so utterly lost and alone in his new world. Where had his strength fled too, where was the powerful green dragon, great and resplendent? Now he felt like little more than that scared hatchling from so long ago. Now that the truce held him here, he had no one to turn to, no one to hold him till his sorrow passed. No one-

Mirelle put her hand on his neck, and gently rubbed his scales. “I miss my mother, too.”

Revaramek slowly lifted his head from his wing. She was comforting him? He turned his head, his spines half-lifted, wavering around his face. “Mirelle?”

Mirelle pulled her hand back. She bit her lip, and glanced away. “Sorry, I was trying to help.”

“I know.” Revaramek sniffed, his breath shuddering. “I…have a terribly foolish question to ask.”

“Go on, then.” Mirelle wiped her eyes with the back of her hands, smearing tear-moistened mud.

“Will you be my friend?”

Mirelle’s jaw dropped. She looked frozen, as if he couldn’t possibly have asked her a more shocking question. Revaramek regretted it in an instant. He turned away again, hissing at himself. What a stupid thing to say. It hadn’t even come out right. It sounded like something a hatchling would ask a turtle he found in the marsh.

Humiliation added to flush that had already flooded his frills with heat. “I…that isn’t…I was going to…”

“Revaramek…” Mirelle set her hand atop his paw, her voice soft. “With all you’ve done for me, even after the way I treated you, I hardly deserve your friendship. But if you wish it, I’d be honored to call you my friend.” She gave him a little smile. “It is, without doubt…” Mirelle made an odd noise, halfway between a sob and a laugh. The dragon hoped she wasn’t about to retch on him. “The absolute least I can do for you now.”

“We are friends, then.” Revaramek smiled. Her acceptance of his embarrassing proposal warmed him enough to ease the lonely chill that had settled into his soul. “Now let us never speak of it again.”

Mirelle laughed, a sound that seemed bright and musical after all the sobs that preceded it. “As you wish, Rev. You should…” She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering a little. “You should try and get some rest. Tomorrow we need to have your wounds looked at.”

“I’ll be fine. Tomorrow we go for back up.” He arched his neck, staring down at her. “Are you cold?”

“A little.” Mirelle cast a glance back at the rat nest blankets. “Where’d those come from, anyway?”

“I used to bring a maiden here.”

Mirelle chuckled softly and shook her head. “I should have known.” She shivered again. “I suppose ratty old maiden blankets are better than nothing. Why’d you bring her all the way out here?”

“This place reminds me of some half-forgotten memory, a feeling I am not sure I even want to remember. So, nostalgia, I suppose.” Revaramek shifted himself to settle upon his side. He lifted a foreleg, then tilted his head towards the crook between his limb and his body. “You may lie against me, if you wish. Or if you prefer the blanket that is fine too.”

Mirelle glanced back and forth between the blankets and the dragon. When she crawled forward to lay against the dragon’s scaled body, Revaramek smiled. He curled his foreleg around her, gentle but secure. She draped her arms across him, and laid her head against his chest. Her hair tickled his scales.

“Just don’t tell anyone.”

“Never, Mirelle.”

Mirelle took a deep breath, and let it out in the longest sigh Revaramek had ever heard. “Good night, Revaramek.”

The dragon smiled, and laid his head down against the cool stone. “Good night, Mirelle.”

Together, they shared warmth and comfort in new friendship. Lulled by Mirelle’s soft breathing, Revaramek slumbered in peace.