FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

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Chapter Fifty Six

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Shrouded in a veil of crumbling dream, Revaramek followed the music. Behind him, there was only darkness, and silence. Ahead of him was also dark, but there was song, there was life. He crawled towards the sound, unsure if he was awake, dreaming, or dead. Flickering images wavered in his vision, never staying long enough for him to recognize them. A dragon, a woman, a swamp, a marsh. Every image brought with it an emotion, love, joy, terror, hope. Each emotion was as powerful as he'd ever known, and each was gone in an instant.

Revaramek found himself upon a beach. The sands were warm, the water lapping at it cold, and scented with salt. He'd never seen such a place, only read about them in the stories. Behind him, darkness lingered, eating away at the sand and the water. Ahead of him there was light. Bright sunshine, and warmth. And music. He followed the song. His pace was slow, his legs broken. All he could do was crawl. Yet he felt no pain, only frustration. If only he could walk, could fly. But his wings hung limp.

The sands gave way to burning earth, and blistering sun. The water was gone. Everything was dry, and dead. The ground was cracked and shattered, like his bones. Bits of black stone studded it. In the distance, desiccated, skeletal palm trees stood sentinel over a long-dry oasis. Bones were strewn in mud, the only lingering trace of water. Still, the music continued. Somewhere in the distance, someone was singing. An old song, sad and mournful, the sound of desert wind lamenting the world that once was. But there was a note of hope, as well, as if the wind knew that one day, the rains would fall again.

A spear of sunlight shone upon the distance, pointing the way to the song, and Revaramek crawled onward. The baked earth gave way once more to sand. Hot and golden, loose and fine. Revaramek crawled across entire dunes of it. In the distance, gray stone towers lay in crumbled lines all around a ruined fortress. Wind and time had long since smoothed down the exposed stone. The song grew louder.

The dragon turned his head towards the sound. Between the dunes, in the warm sunlight, danced an urd'thin pup. Fluffy gray fur covered him everywhere, rustled by the wind. He wore simple hide breeches. In the shade of a tree with strange, hand-shaped fruits, a pack rested. A name was sewn into the bag, but Revaramek could not read it. He crawled closer to the pup, wishing he could rise, and walk.

As the pup danced, he sang. The notes carried everywhere, washed over Revaramek like a soothing balm. His legs fixed themselves. The dragon stood once more. His wings stretched, healthy again. The pup's song grew happier, and more hopeful. More familiar. As he danced to his own music, he waved his hands around. Water sprang from his fingertips, dripped to the sand like rain. Soon, the wet sand rose, shaping little houses, trees, and with them came urd'thin. A village, a family, a tribe born of sand.

Revaramek tried to form words. "You...you're..."

The pup came to a stop, and turned to face the dragon. He smiled, lifted a hand and waggled his fingers in a friendly, child-like wave. "Hello."

Revaramek woke to a raging storm. Rain pelted him. Winds gusted, and fat droplets stung his sensitive wings. He flicked his flight membranes across his eyes, trying to remember where he was. The ground beneath his paws was soft, muddy. Hints of moss clung to it where his scaly body hadn't churned it into nothingness. Boot prints made for puddles in the mud. He was about to call for Mirelle when he realized her boots hadn't left those prints. Those were Asterbury's footprints and he was in the poison swamp.

With a groan, the dragon pushed himself up onto all fours. His legs all wobbled. They were stiff, his paws half-numb. How long had he been out? He took a few unsteady steps, then stretched a wing to shield his head from the driving rain. Wait...wait. Wasn't his wing broken? Revaramek turned his head, staring at it. Everything looked intact. And his legs...he was sure he'd broken at least one of them...He lifted a foreleg, looking at it. Then he ducked his head to inspect his other limbs. They were all fine.

That didn't make any sense.

The last thing he remembered was...the flood Asterbury wrought to drown him. And somehow he'd...had he saved himself? Or did the swamp save him? Did it even matter? Even after he washed ashore, he was sure Asterbury had come back to kill him. And yet...here he was, not only alive, but whole again. Revaramek pinned his spines and flattened his ears. He wasn't sure he wanted to think about that meant.

Revaramek took a few more wobbling steps. His body might not be broken, but didn't quite feel ready to travel yet, either. He tilted his head, peering up at the sky, beyond the saw-edged canopy. The clouds that churned there were darker than he remembered, angry, and unleashing their rage through walls of wind and rain. In the far distance, lightning flashed in a constant, blue-white strobe beyond the horizon. Had Asterbury summoned the storm, or was he just adding to it with his fury? For that matter, where was the little bastard?

The dragon snapped his jaws. Didn't matter. Either Asterbury would come back to kill him after all, or he wouldn't. Truth be told, Revaramek hadn't expected to live long after smashing the gate. Having to survive in the swamp again wasn't really part of his plan. But if Asterbury wanted to let the swamp claim Revaramek's life, then Revaramek would be happy to defy him in that, too.

"Get mounted, Asterbury."

Speech was difficult. His tongue felt swollen, pressing against his teeth. A desperate thirst left scratchiness irritating his throat. His head ached a little. He needed water. Clean water. And then he needed shelter. Later, he'd need food. At least he remembered most creatures being edible, even if most of them also tasted like mud. He tilted his head back, sniffing at the rain. If his memories were reliable, most times the rain was as poisoned as the swamp itself. But once in a while, the weather changed long enough for the rain to fall clean, and fresh.

To his surprise, the rain washing across him smelled wonderful. Was it just good luck to have arrived right before the rain went clean for a day? Seemed unlikely. But was it any more unlikely than jumping from world to world with a god in the flesh driven mad by story-obsessed cultists? He wondered again why he hadn't drowned. Was that really the doing of whatever spark lay inside him? Was that truly how he'd saved Mirelle? Had he changed the rain, as well? Some subconscious act of a power he scarcely understood? Or had Asterbury done it?

Hello.

The memory of his dream left him shivering, scales clicking together. Or was it just an urd'thin pup trying to make it rain, to build his cities in the sand? Or to save the dragon who called his name? Asterbury claimed they weren't all rattling around in his head, but maybe one of them was. Maybe he heard his name called for the first time in so many years, and despite Asterbury's best efforts, woke up and wanted to help.

He glanced into the distance again, where the blue-white lightning crackled across the sky, flashed deep within the storm. Maybe he was even arguing with himself, now.

Or maybe dehydration was just getting to him.

Revaramek crooked his wing to catch some of the rain. It splattered against the membranes, sluicing across them. He curled his long neck around and stretched it towards his wing, then lapped up some of the water dribbling across it. It was an uncomfortable position, and yielded only a little water with every swallow, but it eased the worst of his thirst. When his neck ached, he straightened it and folded his wing. For now, he had all the drinkable water he'd need, but once it stopped raining, he was going to have to find another source.

Memories told him the best places to find drinkable water in the swamp came from old springs, where it still bubbled up out of the earth, fresh and clean. He remembered such springs were sometime found in piles of rock, or little caves, perhaps built in ages past by the minerals the water carried with it. Others he remembered found in ruins, where someone in a civilization long gone had built fountains and bathing tubs around them. He wished he could remember more of his life in the swamp, but he'd been so young when mother took them out of it.

Had he returned through the same gate he'd left, last time? He assumed that he had, but...he thought he remembered more land around it back then. Could the water still be rising? Maybe that was why the image in the book looked different than what he remembered. Or maybe the storytellers and their books were just wrong. It didn't matter. What mattered now was survival. If Asterbury intended to watch him flounder and die in the poison, then every day he survived it was another claw poked in Asterbury's eye. Ooh, he liked that idea.

Revaramek turned on muddy earth, gazing around. The mound of moss and dirt he'd found himself on was not the same one they'd first entered. There was no sign of former walls, no broken gate, no shattered silver stones or smashed arches. He thought the vines and swamp creatures had carried him to the same place he started, but now he wasn't sure. Perhaps they'd only taken him to the nearest landmass. Or maybe this was the same place, and Asterbury's flood had simply scoured every trace of it down to mud and tenacious moss.

Whatever the case, there was no shelter here. And when the rains were gone, there'd be no clean water, either. As he considered his options, the dragon crooked his other wing to collect more water. He stretched his head around, lapping up all he could. The water eased his thirst, and though he knew it would have him feeling better, it also accentuated another need. A painful rumble gnawed at his belly. He hadn't eaten since...well, he didn't know how long it had been now since his last meal in Mirelle's tavern.

The memory dug a cold claw into his heart. He lapped up more water from his wing to try and clear the lump from his throat. Strange how a place he'd only been to a few times suddenly felt like a home he'd never get to see again. He wished he'd gotten to tell Beka and Tavaat more stories. Wished he'd gotten to know Mirelle better. They'd only just become friends, and already they were parted. At least he knew they were safe from Asterbury, now.

"Thinking about them isn't going to find shelter and water, you dumb lizard." Revaramek snorted at himself. "If you want to be a big whiny hatchling, do so once you've found somewhere you can live a little while longer."

The dragon padded around, trying to find a spot where the mud was firmer. When he found an area that would support him well enough, he braced himself against it and leapt into the air. He beat his wings, ascending. The air was thick and heavy, hard to cut through. He hadn't remembered it being any harder to fly in this swamp. Then he laughed. Of course not, he hadn't learned to fly till he was in the marsh.

He made for a hole in the canopy, slicing through walls of rain. The trees here were strange. Towering, primeval things that dwarfed even the largest cypress and willows from the marsh. Some of them looked long dead. Others looked as if they were rejuvenating, layers of sharp-edged leaves of black and green on their many-forked boughs. Some trees were layered with needles like pines, but with larger, more bristly needles jutting right from their trunks. Red blossoms dotted them. Vines with curved thorns wreathed many trees, with their own sets of oddly-shaped leaves, and occasional bright blue flowers. Other vines were moving, crawling up the tree like lazy serpents.

Once Revaramek was above the trees, he leveled off. He didn't want to get any closer to those clouds than he had too. Something about them looked...off. Different. Faint memories tickled his mind. His mother had mentioned the clouds back in the swamp, once in a while. How they were poisoned, like the water. He glanced up at them, watching them swirl, dark and angry. Perhaps they were safer to travel when they were pouring fresh water, but he needed to be able to see what he was flying over, anyway.

Revaramek glanced over his pumping wings. More blue light flashed and flickered in the distance. He didn't want to go anywhere near that, whether or not it was Asterbury's rage channeled into the storm. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't want to fly in any sort of storm, anyway, but the sooner he found a place where fresh water might flow, the better off he'd be.

For untold hours, Revaramek flew through the rain. The infinite swamp below him seemed at once horrifyingly familiar, and strangely alien. It had been so long since he'd wandered the place with his mother that he'd almost forgotten its terrible details. The bubbling, black water. The strange lifeforms, seemingly fused from other creatures, the carnivorous vines, the multitude of ruins dotting the landscape.

Something still seemed off about the place. In his oldest memories, tattered and faded with time, he remembered...a little more land, a little less water. The picture in the book had thrown him off because the water level looked wrong. And seeing the place again, it looked wrong in person, too. He remembered more ruins, bigger hills. Revaramek wasn't sure if it was just because he'd been so small, back then. A little hill above the water might have seemed a towering slope to a tiny hatchling.

But the further he flew, the more sure of it he was. Either he was in a different swamp, or the water was still rising. A slow, but steady change, over decades or longer, swallowing up what was left of the world. Jekk said something about there being marsh on the other side of the world from the desert, that the urd'thin never knew. Maybe all the poison water poured into that desert in their tide of grief was slowly but surely draining southward, into the swamp.

In the end, Revaramek knew it didn't matter. This was what was left of his birthplace now, and this was where he was stuck. The hows and the whys weren't going to keep him alive. He landed a few times in search of a water source. He examined a small cave, barely large enough to fit him, and found only colorful insects and toxic looking frogs with wings. Revaramek wandered a hill top ruin, again with no luck. He returned to the skies, and kept searching.

As darkness fell, the rain continued. The flashes of blue light in the far distance were much fainter now, but still flickered and shone through the night. With his hunger and fatigue growing in equal measure, Revaramek decided to make food and shelter his temporarily priority. After spotting a flock of red-feathered bird-like creatures huddled in a tree, he chased them into the air with fire and gusts of wind from his wings. He pursued them, dove through their formation a few times until he'd snatched enough birds to smooth off the worst of his hunger.

Revaramek settled down for the night in what seemed like the top of an old tower, protruding from the burbling mire. Depressions in the pitted stone caught plenty of rainwater, and the remains of a roof sheltered him from the storm. After drinking as much fresh water as he could hold, he shook himself off, and curled beneath the broken ceiling to try and stay dry. While he waited for slumber to find him, the dragon wondered just what the hell he'd done. Then he snarled, cursing himself for thinking that way. He'd saved the village, and that world, from Asterbury. That was what he'd done. Nothing else mattered after that.

Despite his deep fatigue, the dragon found only fitful sleep. An aching body, a fretful mind, and a bevy of unfamiliar nighttime calls all conspired against him. He woke often throughout the night, and each time struggled to return to his dreams. When he woke yet again after a short spurt of dreaming, and found that dawn had broken somewhere between the clouds, he decided he may as well continue his search.

It was still raining. He sniffed at it as he uncurled, found it was clean. Revaramek drank his fill from the water collecting in the potholes, then returned to the sky. Though he'd kept thirst at bay, hunger was not such an easy battle. The birds he'd caught the night before proved the exception rather than the rule. In the day light, they proved far more troublesome quarry, scattering long before he neared them each time he spotted another flock.

A few times, he saw larger things down below, in the water or near its edge. One such creature, a six-legged reptilian looking beast half his size submerged and vanished as he circled overhead. Another had a massive, angular shell like a turtle carved from stone, with heavy claws on its slow moving limbs as it scaled a tree. With enough force, Revaramek could probably break its shell open, but the strange, yellow fronds waving all across its back made him fear eating such a creature might well be his last meal.

His search for water proved even less fruitful. He investigated half a dozen caves and ruins, and each time came up empty. In one ruin, he found what looked like an old fountain, broken and crumbled. Stains on the stone around it indicated that water had once flowed over its channel, perhaps not even that long ago. But now it was dry. Giving in for the day, Revaramek made that place his shelter. He curled near the dry fountain, out of the rain that continued to fall.

Revaramek wondered about the ruins. Who had made so many buildings out of stone? They must have been here before the poison swamp, where they also there before the primeval marsh that once nurtured life? He tried to remember what Jekk had said. Though it had been only days since his talk with the old man in Mirelle's tavern, it felt like a lifetime had passed. He thought he remembered Jekk saying that The Storyteller had made something new, where an old story had ended. So where these ruins the remnants of that story?

Slumber claimed him before he could properly contemplate the answer.

The next morning, Revaramek awoke to crushing hunger. Though he'd slept better, he had to find food. To his great surprise, he found the rain continued. The worst of the storm had ebbed away, leaving only a steady, pouring rain. He tried to remember if he had ever seen clean rain fall for three days in a row when he first lived in the swamp, but he'd been so young it was impossible to say.

At least the rain helped him quell his hunger for a little while. He filled his belly with as much rainwater as he could hold. Then he walked to the edge of the swamp to empty his bladder. While he was there, he stared into the murk. The water looked a little less dark now, as if all the rain pouring into it was slowly overwhelming the poison. If only that was all it took. Not that the rain would ever last long enough, anyway. Still, it made Revaramek wonder if the aquatic creatures were adapted to the toxins, or if there was a layer of cleaner water to retreat to.

Movement on rocks scattered around the ruin drew his attention. Long, slender green-scaled creatures scuttled about on multiple pairs of chitinous black legs. They flicked their tongues in the air, clacked curved mandibles. They looked like snakes, walking about on the legs of spiders, and with the jaws of ants. Revaramek smiled. He'd almost forgotten about those things. The largest of them was nearly the length of his foreleg, if nowhere near the girth. Most were smaller. If his memory was accurate, they were edible.

With a little effort, and a few too many slips into the dark water, Revaramek caught a half dozen of the things. When he tore into them, black ichor spilled out, bitter upon his tongue. Revaramek scrunched his muzzle, pinning his spines. Desperate times, and all that. He ate all six of the spidery snaky things, and though they tasted rather revolting, they filled his belly and finally quelled his painful hunger. He rinsed his mouth with rainwater. After waiting long enough to be relatively sure he wasn't going to retch up his meal, and that he hadn't poisoned himself, he took to the air, and resumed his search.

Much of the day passed the same as the first. Again he struggled to find a source of water that would last when the weather changed. If not for the rain washing across his every scale, spraying off his wings with every beat, despondency would have already set in. In the back of Revaramek's mind, he was already starting to consider that he might have survived his battle with Asterbury only to die of thirst. The thought made him snarl. Was that what Asterbury wanted? Well, maybe he'd just drink a belly full of the swamp and take himself out that way, show that little bastard who-

A dragon's laughter echoed in the distance, muffled by the rain. Revaramek's wing beats faltered. Had he gone all this way only to end up running into Aylaryl and her madman anyway? He grit his teeth, growling under his breath as he considered turning around and flying the other way. Still...Asterbury could probably just...magic up some fresh water whenever they needed it. Maybe that was what he was hoping for. For Revaramek to crawl back to him, begging him to help him survive.

"No way, Asterbury." Revaramek muttered to himself as he banked away. "I'll find my own water. You can kiss my fat-"

The dragon's laughter came to him again, a simple, joyful sound. The laughter was brassy, musical happiness. Somehow, he doubted Aylaryl would be so happy now, stuck in this place. He dipped his wing, tilting back towards the sound. What if they'd found something that made her happy? A fountain pouring clean water, or...gods, what if they'd found something that might help them escape? Jekk had been sure that would be impossible without Revaramek's help, but...damn it, now he had to know. He'd be damned if he'd ever let them escape this place.

As he flew towards the sound, it grew clearer. With the distance closing, the rainfall no longer muffled the other dragon's laughter so much. Individual tones became clear. It was definitely a female's voice. Just as he realized how unfamiliar that voice was, green scales flashed in the distance.

It wasn't Aylaryl.

Revaramek sucked in a breath, his eyes wide and his spines trembling and fully extended. There were still dragons living here? He'd half thought his mother and he were the last ones to survive in this swamp, and in the end it had claimed her life anyway. But here before him was proof that at least one dragon life still lingered in this horrible place. He wanted to call out to her in greeting, to life his voice in gleeful cheer, but at the same time, he half felt as if he should unsheathe his claws and prepare himself for battle. He didn't know what sort of territorial codes the dragons here had any more, or if the poison had corroded her mind.

Soon, he saw her clearly. She was roughly his size and green, like him, if slightly paler. A common enough color for dragons of the swamp, it seemed. But where he had stripes and splotches and markings everywhere, she had few, just hints of copper and gold edging her webbing, her frills. By the standards of dragons, she looked quite lean. Almost too lean, he thought. Finding food and water in a poisoned water was never easy.

The female crossed a wide, flat, muddy rise, and she was...prancing. Revaramek couldn't think of any better word to describe the way she moved. She hopped across the earth, kicking her paws up, beating her wings against the rain, and all the while laughing. When she reached the water, she turned around, pranced halfway back across the rise, and then flopped to her belly in the mud. Careful of her wings, she rolled over onto her back, and then wriggled about, laughing and kicking her back paws in the air.

She was playing in the rain like a giddy hatchling.

Seeing such a simple, joyful act in such a horrid place made her laughter infectious. Soon Revaramek was laughing with her, circling in the sky above the female dancing in the raindrops. Maybe...maybe it wouldn't be so bad here, after all. When his laughter reached her, she rolled to her paws in an instant. She scrambled back, hissing at him, her spines flared. She opened her wings, ready to fly.

Damn it.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to scare you!" Revaramek descended swiftly, and landed at the far end of the rise from her, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible. He lowered his head towards the earth, tail down and his own frills flattened back. "I just...you were playing, weren't you? It...was the first happy thing I've seen in...quite a while."

The female stared at him with wide eyes, darker bronze than his, with hints of copper fire. She tilted her head, curling her neck a little. Her ears splayed, and confusion flickered in her gaze as if he was speaking gibberish. What if she was feral? All dragons were sapient, thinking creatures, but if she'd grown up an orphan of the swamp, she might not have ever heard spoken words before.

He took a slow step towards her, posture as meek as he could make it. "My name is Revaramek! Do you...do you understand me, at all?"

She tilted her head the other direction, matching his step forward with one of her own. But where his posture remained submissive, she kept her spines flared, her wings spread. She lashed her webbed tail, and dark claws clicked out from muddy paws. She hissed at him, a sound more of warning than aggression. It was clear she was ready to defend herself, but Revaramek didn't think she meant him any more harm than he did her.

"You...you don't...understand me, do you." He lowered his muzzle to the ground, and gave a low whine. "I won't hurt you."

"Veraah?" The female finally spoke. She curled her neck, ears perking as her expression turned more inquisitive.

Veraah._He knew that word, but it had been a long time since he'd heard it. It was an old dragon word. An old _swamp dragon word. He didn't think he'd heard it since his mother had died. Even Aylaryl spoke a different dialect than his mother did. Veraah was a simple, common word, he just hadn't thought of it in years.

It meant 'hello'.

The female took another step forward. "Veraah?"

She was trying to communicate with him.

It slammed into Revaramek's mind like a punch from a demi-god that he was the one speaking gibberish. At least from her point of view. He was talking to her in the common tongue of the marsh, the common human tongue. He'd spent so many years speaking it had become his native language without him even realizing it.

"Veraah!" He called back to her, switching into his people's language. She brightened at once, bronze-copper eyes shining. Sure that he still remembered how to speak it, he introduced himself. "Hello! Revaramek, I am called! Many sorrys I bring for frightening! I come with much desire not to harm."

The female blinked at him, blinked again, and then giggled, a low, soft sound. "You talk funny."

He did? Revaramek licked his muzzle, trying to think about what he was doing wrong. Damn it, language was hard when you actually had to think about it. "Please moment to give me. I...not these words use often."

A smile split the female's muzzle. She pulled her claws back and lowered her wings. "You...you don't get to talk to others often, do you."

If she only knew.

"Not this way. Not this talk." Revaramek grit his teeth. He had most of the words right, but it sounded off, as if he wasn't putting them in the right order. Oh! That was it. Syntax. The syntax was different in his true native tongue. "I...think I...am...getting it right. Now."

The bemused look on the female's face told him he wasn't quite there yet. "You said your name was Revaramek?"

"Yes!" At least he'd gotten that part across. He took a few more steps towards her, only to stop when she hissed at him again. "I...don't want...to hurt you."

"I don't want to hurt you either." She crouched down, angry determination sparking in her eyes. A coldness crept into her voice. "But I won't let you steal my water."

"You have water?"

Shock crossed her face, and she cursed through grit teeth. She backed away again, lowering herself, her claws back out. "We don't have to fight for it. You can just leave."

"Fight...for water?" Gods, was that what the dragons of the swamp had been reduced to while he was away?

"Fine!" With a furious snarl, the female charged him, barreling across the muddy earth. "I won't let it be taken from me again!"

Oh, hell. Instinct sent Revaramek's claws out, left his muscles tensed and primed for battle. He had only seconds to react. Her claws were unsheathed, her teeth bared, and her sharp inhalation of breath meant she was readying her flame. Age old draconic instincts told him to meet her charge, to cut off her flame, to kill her before she could kill him. But he didn't want to hurt her. He could try and trip her up, then pin her down, but...

She spat fire at him, and Revaramek dropped to the mud. The heat of her flames rolled across him, a sharp contrast to the surprisingly cold mud beneath his belly. He flattened his wings, and covered up his head with his paws. He made a decision in that moment that he wasn't going to fight her. That water might well be the only thing keeping her alive, and he wasn't going to hurt her over trying to protect what was hers. He just hoped she'd stop thrashing him long enough to let him fly away.

The female never struck him. Instead, she skidded to a stop in the mud, coming so close he could feel her warm breath against the rain-cooled scales on the back of his neck. He shifted his paws, peeking up at her, and saw sharp teeth inches away from him. But behind those teeth was confusion, uncertainty.

"Why...why are you..."

"I won't fight you." Revaramek tried to speak without getting mud in his mouth. The splattering rain made it difficult. "If you want me to leave, I'll leave. I've been...searching for days, to find water to drink, after this rain ends, and I haven't found anything. But if you don't want to share yours, I won't try to take it from you. It's yours. I'll just fly somewhere else, and hope to find more water."

"Your speech is getting better." She tilted her head, but did not move her teeth away from his neck.

"I'm out of practice with our language, that's all."

"You make it sound like you're more in practice with another language."

"I am." Revaramek saw no sense in lying to her. Whether she believed him or thought him mad wasn't his problem. "I promise I didn't come here to steal your water. I didn't even know you had water. I only came here because I heard you laughing. It was..." He lifted his muzzle enough to bump it against her chin, a friendly gesture. "The first time I'd seen happiness here in a very long time. I saw you rolling in the mud, and it was so joyful, I couldn't help but laugh. I'm sorry I scared you. If you want me to go, I'll go."

The female dragon splayed her ears again, her spines trembling around her head. "It's the rain. The rain always makes me happy when it's clean. It's so rare that it rains so pure, and I've never seen it last so long! I've been...playing in it for days, now. I have to savor it while I can. It feels so good on my wings, on my scales, on my belly...I always go and celebrate the clean rain." She tilted her head, gazing down at him. A hint of hope shone in her eyes now. Revaramek wondered how long she'd been alone. "You swear on your wings and your fire that you aren't here to steal my water?"

Swear on your wings and your fire? Gods, how long had it been since he'd heard that saying? It was an old, formal expression. He offered her a smile. "Yes, I swear on my flight and my flame that I didn't come to steal your water. I only came here because your laughter made me happy for a moment." He wriggled against the mud, grimacing. "I'd swear on my balls too, but if I don't get up from this muck I'm afraid I'm going to freeze them off."

She giggled again, taking a few steps back. "I'd best let you up then."

Revaramek eased himself up onto his haunches, shaking himself. Mud clung to his scales from his chin to his tail, but the rain washed it away in dirty rivulets. "Thank you."

The female remained standing, but tilted her head, glancing down between his hind legs as the rain washed him clean. "It looks like they're still there."

Grinning, Revaramek peered down at himself. "So it does."

"You're a very odd dragon." A smile crept across her muzzle. "But you seem...honest. I'm sorry I overreacted. But the last unfamiliar dragon I met..." She trailed off, glancing away. "I wasn't going to let that happen again." She twisted her head back again, her dark bronze-copper gaze suddenly piercing him as if searching his soul. "Did you mean what you said, about sharing?"

Leaning against his tail, Revaramek held up his forepaws. "I can keep looking. I'm sure I'd find something eventually."

"You won't." The female's eyes met his own, lingering there, trembling and wet. "The world our parents knew is fading further by the day. Clean water is harder and harder to find. If you've been traveling, then you must know that, as well. Is that why you left your home? Did your water run out?"

Revaramek couldn't help it, he laughed. The idea of even beginning to explain to her the hows and whys of his arrival here seemed almost too ludicrous. Where would he even start?

"It's a serious question!" She snapped her jaws, growling a little. "If you're not going to take me seriously-"

"You want a serious answer?" Revaramek tilted his head, staring back at her. "You're the first dragon like me I've seen since my mother died, and that was a very long time ago. I am from a very different place, I know a very different world, and I left that place to make it safe again, for the friends I had there. I don't...know how to search for water here. Drinkable water was everywhere where I came from. I don't even know how to _hunt_properly in this place." He waved his paw, pinning his spines in frustration. "I haven't yet found one source of clean water other than the rain, and I've only managed to catch two small meals in...I don't know even know how long it's been anymore."

"Have you been drinking the black water?" She cocked her head, eyes narrowed.

"Not yet, but the thought occurred to me." Revaramek chuckled, shaking his head. "The serious truth is, I'm probably going to die of thirst or starvation long before the poison gets me."

The female licked her muzzle, rustling her wings. "How did you grow to adulthood, if you don't know how to hunt?"

"Where I came from, it was different. I lived most of my life in a beautiful marsh, where the water was clean, and prey was everywhere. There were mountains, and forests and little human villages, and, and the rain was always clean. I...I never celebrated it because it wasn't rare." While he spoke, the female's eyes slowly grew wider and wider. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"My parents told me stories about a place like that, when I was tiny, and young." She turned her emerald-scaled head, gazing into the rain. "They claimed to know a world like that, when they themselves were but young. Before everything changed, before there was nothing left of this place, but...blasted wasteland, and poison swamp. Are you...are you trying to say..."

Blasted wasteland, and poison swamp. So it wasn't just a flood Asterbury's wrath had wrought. Or was the wasteland the older dead world, untouched by the poison rain? He gave a heavy sigh, shaking his head. "I am saying I am from a different world, and the explanation would be...far more than I could possibly offer in a single day, let alone a single breath."

"I suppose you're either telling an impossible truth, or you're mad." The female laughed again. "Either way, I...well...it would be ever so cruel of me not to share my water with another of our rare kind who came to me with claws sheathed and head bowed. If you are willing to trust me, I am willing to trust you." She lowered her head, neck arched. "I will share my water with you."

Revaramek heaved a deep sigh, a heavy sense of relief settling over him. "Oh, thank gods. I don't think I'd have ever found any on my own."

The female lifted her head just a little, mischief dancing in her dark, copper-bronze eyes. "Neither do I. That's why I'm offering. Now bow your head and accept my offer."

Revaramek blinked, flicked his ears back, then lowered his head in matching gesture. "I....uh...accept...your offer. I'll share your water."

"Then it is done."

"This seems like an awfully formal gesture." He glanced up at her, head tilted. "I haven't accidentally announced myself as your mate, have I?"

The female dragon burst into joyous laughter, the same sort that had drawn him to her through the rain. Unable to find words, she shook her head a few times, as if her laughter wasn't answer enough.

"Alright, alright." Revaramek rose up again, smiling despite the embarrassment than warmed his frills. "You need not laugh at me."

"It only means we're allies. We share the water." The female's laughter trailed off, and she eased back onto her haunches. "We protect it together."

"So..." Revaramek swished his webbed tail a few times. "We're friends, basically."

"Water Allies. But I suppose, we can also be friends."

"Good. I like being friends."

"But only friends." She clicked her teeth.

Revaramek smirked. "You made that part clear already."

She looked him over, curling her tail, its webbing displayed. "You'd have to do something a lot more impressive than speak gibberish and cower in the mud if you expected to be my mate."

"Not my most resplendent moment."

The female scrunched her muzzle. "What's that mean?"

"Resplendent?" Revaramek's eyes lit up. Someone who actually asked."You see, resplendent means brilliant, shining, wondrous, and splendid."

"Oh." She made a show of examining him, then made an odd, dismissive noise, clicking her teeth and clucking her tongue at the same time. "No, I wouldn't use that word for you."

The dragon's smirk turned into a smile. "What's your name?"

The female blinked at him. "Oh, I'm sorry." She put a paw to her chest. "My name is Nyramyn." She stretched her head towards him, and when he did not move away, she sniffed at his neck for several long moments.

"Well, Nyramyn. I think I'm starting to like you." He returned the gesture, bumping his muzzle against her throat, seeking her scent. Behind the rain, and the scents that marked her as an adult female of his own breed, she smelled faintly of exotic spices, rich earth, and sweet water. It was as though the rain's scent had penetrated deep into her, marking her as a remnant of healthy life in a place of death. Pleased, he pulled his head back. "But you see, my full name is Revaramek the Resplendent."

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is!"

"That's not a name." Nyramyn waved her paw. "That's a title. A title you probably gave to yourself."

"It's my name, and everyone uses it."

"Everyone?" Nyramyn looked around the rainy swamp. "Who's everyone? Those screechbirds, there? Hello, Screechbirds! Do you call him Revaramek the Resplendent?" The birds screeched. "No?" She shrugged her wings, smiling at Revaramek. "Well that's everyone I can see."

The dragon laughed, curling his tail around his hind paws. "Oh yes, I definitely like you. But I'm telling the truth. All my conquered subjects referred to me that way."

She tilted her head, her smile matching his. "Your conquered subjects?"

"Yes!" Revaramek arched his neck. "You see, I conquered many lands, where I came from. In fact, I conquered them all. I was a great, benevolent overlord."

Nyramyn scrunched her green muzzle. "I don't know those words."

"You see..." Revaramek circled a paw in the air, adopting his most scholarly tone of voice, spines half lifted. "Benevolent means kindly, and protective. And overlord means someone who rules everything. Therefore, I conquered everyone, but they all loved me because I was kind, and protective. A benevolent overlord."

Her smile grew wider, and the shine in her eyes brightened. "You're making that up!"

"I am not! Why, I was the greatest of all benevolent overlords, where I am come from."

"Balls, you were." Nyramyn laughed and tossed her head. "It sounds like something you'd steal from a tale your parents told you when you were but a giggly whelp."

"Oh, a tale, you say?" Revaramek perked his ears, tilting his head. "Do you like stories?"

Nyramyn shrugged her wings. "I only know a few, that I heard from my parents. I used to like hearing them, when I was little. It's been ages now, though, since I've heard a tale. I rather miss them sometimes."

Revaramek, deep inside, knew then why the swamp had saved him. "Then I have so many stories to tell you."