FSE

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Chapter Eight

Once in the air I turned north away from the valley, and ascended up a little higher then usual to clear the peaks. Normally I would follow the canyons and valleys and stay at the lower altitudes, but it was faster to top some of the lower peaks instead. Kylah was dressed for flight and so the cold winds would not bother her as much, and as long as she had no trouble breathing I could take the shorter route. Though I did eventually descend a bit more when she told me she was getting light headed. Humans after all were not designed for flight.

Nonetheless I was able to shave off quite a bit of time from the flight. The old ruins were well less then a day's flight away from my home, but it was already late in the morning when we got started, and if possible I didn't want to be out too late after dark. It got very cold very fast in the mountains once the sun went down, and I didn't think Kylah would appreciate a night time flight in the freezing cold. There was a shelter at the ruins would could use, if we had too.

We kept conversation to a relative minimum on the way over to the ruins. Not because we had nothing to say or because we were angry at each other, far from it in fact. But at higher altitudes the winds had picked up, and Kylah spent most of the flight clinging to my neck and struggling to hear my occasional descriptions of the landscape above the howling winds.

For a little while, the land that slowly glided by beneath us was even more rugged then that in which I lived. Little more then sparse, jagged peaks of stone that rose and clashed with each other, occasionally erupting into sharp looking towers of stone like spears and blades trying desperately to pierce the sky. Once in a while the mountains gave way to sheer drops that hurtled far below into shadowy valleys with floors unseen beneath the gloom. Here and there a bowl shaped depression carved by some long gone glacier was carpeted with tundra grasses and stubborn brush, pock marked with holes dug by rodents who fled to their burrows at first sight of my shadow. Rather like myself, I suppose, hiding in my so-called lair at first scent of humanity's wretched breath.

As we neared the ruins the landscape again grew a little more inviting, groves of pine and fir trees returned to spread patchwork assemblies of various green shades across the mountainsides wherever they could take hold. The jutting spires of stone grew less and less like the fangs of the earth and gradually began to resemble the plates on the back of some grand armored lizard, still striking but rolling into each other in a more gentle way, like a cascade of waves rolling across a slate gray sea, frozen in time.

The ruins themselves were atop a vast, and sprawling mesa situated deep within the mountain range, but no where near its tallest and most foreboding peaks. I had always imagined that part of the reason it was long since abandoned was its location. While picturesque it was hardly an impossible place for humans to reach. It was not an easy place for them to reach mind you as it required a very long and strenuous journey through the mountains which included several treacherous passes. But for a species determined to wipe out dragon kind, the journey would be well worth the toll it would take on an army when they had their chance to lay siege to one of dragon kind's grand palaces.

On either side of the plateau rose two larger peaks, both roughly triangular in shape, tapering to a craggy peak with three rugged and relatively evenly sloped sides. Like most of the mountains around they were comprised of more granite then anything else, and at various times of day and various weather conditions they could appear white, pale gray, dark gray or even a soft shade of purple. And today, the afternoon sun painted them a striking golden shade that made them glow like holy gateways on either side of our lost home. The snow that capped the pointed helm of each mountain glowed brightest of all as though someone had lit a welcoming lantern atop each mountain to guide the last dragon still lingering back to his ancestral home.

Though it was dwarfed by the two ever watchful peaks on either side of it, the plateau itself was still massive, easily big enough to fit even a very large human city atop it. I had seen pictures of it in books, drawings and paintings of the former palace city in it's glory, and it had been a truly amazing sight. Aside from granite, there was a great deal of marble running deep inside these mountains, and much of that marble had once capped the plateau.

The dragons of old had carved much of their place from the very marble that once topped the peak the way a dragon's horns topped his head. I had no idea how they'd done it or how long it took, but they had carved an entire palace from a mountaintop. And where they could carve no deeper, or where the marble twisted into softer stone, they brought in other marble quarried from within the nearby peaks, as well as massive chunks of granite to build more and more.

The palace city had been an incredibly beautiful thing, all soaring towers and walkways, landing ledges, sunbathing plazas, fluted columns and elegantly carved archways. It was less a fortress then a work of art, a place for dragons to live, to look at it, and to show off their own brilliance. A place of beauty in which to live in happiness. It had been filled with other art, too, statues of dragons in positions of nobility and happiness, paintings across the white and gold walls, everything glowing brightly in the sun, and filled with ever shifting colors as dragons went about their daily lives. Some of the pictures even depicted fountains with towering columns of water shooting into the air or cascading over stone staircases, though I've no idea how they would have gotten such a thing to function. It spread to the very edges of the plateau, and beyond, hundreds if not thousands of dragons all sharing the place together. Even beyond it, there were caves in the base of the two guardian peaks that had once been inhabited by dragons, as well.

Almost all of that was gone now, of course. I had no idea how long it had been since dragons had lived here, the place had been abandoned long before my clan had ever taken up permanent residence in our valley. The tales said that the humans had long ago invaded the place, and killed most of the dragons, driven off the rest. At the time it was the furthest they'd ever pushed into the mountains, and it had been the sounding of the death knell for our species. They'd pushed in deeper since then, mostly in isolated squads of dragon slayers, like the ones who had nearly broached my valley, and found my son, who's skulls adorned my treasury.

With no one to care for it, the palatial city had fallen first into disrepair, and then into ruin. I am sure the invasion of the human filth had much to do with that. No doubt their celebrated their victorious slaughter of many dragons and their children by taking their hammers of war to everything around them, smashing our beautiful carvings and our glorious home into as many small fragments as they possibly could. It was all an assumption on my part, there was always the possibility however slight that something else had destroyed the evidence of our home, and our culture, but I rather doubted it.

As it was, the place still maintained a strange, haunting sort of beauty. It was a tooth with two edges though, much as I loved to visit the place and bask in what was left of the beauty my people created, it always reminded me once more of just how much humanity had taken from us. Though, that never stopped me from returning once again. I came here several times a year, sometimes more, and I always seemed to find something worth taking home, or something worth remembering.

Once I had finally reached the place, I circled over it once to let Kylah take it in. From above it was easy to see just how sprawling it had once been. The foundations of floors and walls still marked the entire plateau, and from the sky the rambling weave of white lines that spread across the surface of the mountaintop formed strange patterns and angles, intersecting and paralleling each other until they looked to form some kind of archaic and mystical symbol. For all I knew they did, the dragons of old might have planned the place and built it upon the lines of a symbol that meant something important to them.

Grass, brush and trees had long since taken over much of the plateau, rising first through cracks in stone floors, and then growing from dirt and debris spread across the surface of the place by wind and time. There had once been beautiful, elegant gardens of flowers and massive, ancient trees on several levels of the palace, and those that had not been destroyed by pillaging humans had now grown wild, overtaking entire sections of the place, their seedlings long since grown and spreading seedlings of their own. Year by year, nature was retaking what the dragons had created. Better nature than man, I supposed.

In many places shattered stone marked the locations of once graceful towers, or archways. Near one corner of the plateau, a long series of broken white boulders half covered with moss and strewn in a rough line marked where a tower had long ago toppled to the ground and shattered against it. Once delicately carved stone blocks had been weathered away into little more then rounded boulders, jutting up from grassy ground like a series of tombstones commemorating where my specie's grand achievements first began to crumble. In some places the base of towers still stood, circular white or gray walls less then a story high, two stories in one location. The top of once smooth walls now rough edged and covered with hardy grasses and mosses that had somehow found a roothold atop solid stone.

Nearer the center of the plateau there were several rooms that were still almost completely intact. The rooms varied in sizes, and some even had roofs that were intact or nearly so. They had been deepest inside the palace, and had been sheltered the longest from the weathering effects of the world that slowly ate away at the rest of the grand marble structure. It was inside one of those rooms where I'd found the statue that had fallen over, and where years of harsh weather had worn down out statues outside, this one was still nearly intact.

I set down a little beyond the outer edges of the ruined wall that had once surrounded the place. A long since overgrown pathway ran up side of the mesa, where the slope that fell away from the flat top was the most gentle. White flagstones once covered the pathway, though those that were still left were barely peeking above moss and grass these days. The mesa itself was slowly crumbling away in some areas as well. Already broken white stone littered the base of the plateau where the edges had fallen away and taken what was left of the original outer walls with them, a tumble of gray stone and white walls and red dirt added to the slope at the base of the plateau.

The ground was cold beneath my paws, much colder then the floor of my valley. Here and their pockets of crusty snow still dotted the valley. It hadn't snowed for at least a week even higher up in the mountains, but it had never warmed up enough here for the last of the snow to melt away. At the peak of the day's warmth the top of the lingering snow began to melt, just in time for the sun to set and the slushier top snow to freeze once more. All the trees with leaves to lose had already lost them here, leaving several tall wooden skeletons to stand watch over the ruins alongside the conical pine and fir and the few other remaining evergreens.

Kylah slide down off my back, a little snow crunching beneath her boots. She shivered and drew the sleeved cloak tighter around herself, then rubbed her hands together. "I thought it was going to be a lot warmer down here, but it sure isn't."

I chuckled a little, folding my wings back against my body. "No, we're much higher up now then we were back in the valley. That valley beneath my home is so low it's not much higher then the place in the forest I first found you. That's probably one of the reasons my people found themselves there, it was one of the warmest places available without leaving the relative safety of the mountains. This place though is a lot higher though." I gestured with a paw towards the old pathway, barely visible beneath the grass and brush that had long since overtaken it despite the paving of flagstones. "Though it was a lot easier for the humans to reach, especially considering we deigned to put a path there." I rolled my eyes. "I have no idea why, we had wings, we didn't we just use them? Not that they wouldn't have found their way up here eventually anyway."

Kylah just smiled at me and patted my black scaled cheek. "Grumpy old dragon."

I smiled a little, nuzzling her head. She had that right after all.

"So, show me around the place! It looked amazing from the air."

My smile grew, somehow I doubted it would ever get old to hear a human who was actually interested in the history of dragons. I flared my spiky crests, the air felt very cold against the suddenly exposed membranes, and I opened my wings a little more for emphasis. "It is amazing! I just wish there was more left I could show you. Come along!"

I lead her up what was left of the path through what had once been the front gate way. I paused, and waved my paw across the sky, drawing an imaginary archway. "This is where the gate was. There was a huge wall that went all the way around the place, tall enough we'd have to fly to get over it. And the gateway was right here. It was wide enough for quite a few dragons to pass through all at once, and it was a giant archway made of stone, with scalloped edges all along the top of the arch, and dragon's paws carved from the stone to make it look as though dragons were holding the gate open or closed."

Kylah looked back and forth, following what was left of the former wall's foundation with her eyes. On either side of us the crumbled stone formed the remains of several larger circular areas, where the columns that supported the gateway's arch had once been. She walked over to one and nudged at it with her feet. The stone was cracked and when she bumped it with her boot, a piece of it broke away and rolled across the dead grass. "Oh! Sorry!"

She sounded so horrified about breaking a tiny piece of rock that she must have thought I'd be angry with her for further ruining the ruins. Instead, I just laughed, and shook my head, tail tip whipping at the air behind me. "Nothing to be sorry for, it's not as if you've sent the whole place toppling down." I lifted a paw and shook it, my paw pads were getting cold already. Then I pointed at the piece she'd broken. "Why don't you keep that, if you want? Not many people have stone once carved by dragons."

Kylah picked up the piece of rock, it was solid white marble with a little gold vein running through it. She turned it over in her hands, and then slipped it beneath her cloak to put it in the pocket of her breeches. "Thanks, Vraal," she said and patted my nose.

I blinked and pulled my head back, then sneezed. "Your fingers are almost as cold as my paws!"

Kylah laughed a little and retracted her arms into the sleeves of her cloak to try and warm them a little. "How do you know that's what the gateway looked like? Are you just imagining it based on what's left of the foundation?"

"Oh no," I said, walking through what had once been the gateway and leading her deeper into our ruined city. "I've seen pictures! Some of my old books have drawings and paintings of this city in it's glory. My parents took me here once with one of the books to point out what everything used to look like!"

Kylah smiled at the idea of a young dragon pattering around after his parents as they pointed out all the local landmarks like an overpriced guide in one of the largest cities. "Don't suppose you brought that book with you to show me, hmm?"

"Erm..." I grunted, and scratched at the base of my right horn, flicking my left ear. "Afraid not. I didn't exactly plan this out in advance after all. I'm afraid you'll have to make do with my rather ineloquent descriptions of everything."

"Your description of the gateway seemed just fine to me," she said, scratching at the side of my head, near the same horn I'd just been scratching. "You getting scale mites again?"

I snorted and glared down at her out of one eye. "You know perfectly well I haven't had scale mites since I was a hatchling. Be nice or I'll leave you here."

"You'd miss me too much," she shot right back, cutting a little too deep under my scales.

"Only because you promised to cook me a meal," I muttered, walking on.

I lead her on, and soon left what was left of the path, heading for the remains of one of the giant towers. When I neared it, I came to a stop, waving my paw up at the sky again as if painting the tower myself, twinsting my claws around near the top. "There was a huge tower here, you can see the base of it."

Kylah walked in front of me, and stepped over the crumbling remains of the outer tower wall. There was little left of this tower, just a broken down circular wall that varied in height from several feet, to mere inches above the ground. Kylah slowly turned around inside the tower, imagining the massive thing encircling her. The tower was large enough in circumference to comfortably hold many, many dragons so it must have looked unbelievably large to her. She went to one of the taller remaining wall segments, marveling at how thick the stone wall had been.

"It's amazing. This is even more impressive and unbelievable then the human castles I've seen."

"See?" I said, a little smugness creeping into my voice. I let my tongue hang out of my muzzle at her a moment before I said, "I told you we did great things. Come, I'll show you the tower that fell down across the ground next, you can see some of the stone work really well."

It was quite a ways off, but the fact that she seemed to enjoy this place so much was giving me energy. I bound across the plateau like an excited hatchling, laughing and calling out for her to catch up. I leapt and jumped over blocks of white stone, slabs of gray granite, and a moss covered tree trunk, and no doubt making quite the fool of myself! I didn't matter, how often did I have a human I actually wanted to show this place, and better yet a human who was actually interested in it? Never before, and no doubt, never again.

As I neared the fallen tower my fun abruptly ended when I glanced back to make sure Kylah was still following me, and in my haste slammed one of my front paws right into something hard and cold. Pain shot through my paw and I yelped in pain, instinctively lifting it up and out of the way of whatever I'd banged it into. But in the process I somehow managed to trip up my other front paw and send my chest crashing down onto the ground. I banged my chin on the frozen earth, and the back half of my body soon followed suit. I skidded across the ground a few feet, thankful at least that I hadn't banged my balls on anything this time. I was not always the most graceful dragon.

I lay on the ground for a moment, paw and chin aching, a few little fluttering motes of light lingering in my vision longer then they were welcome. I lifted my head and shook it, and they finally seemed to get the hint, fading away into well deserved obscurity. I started to push myself up, whimpering in pain and favoring my front paw. I looked at it, I hadn't broken any toes but I'd certainly stubbed them badly enough.

From the way Kylah called out to me, I could tell I must have looked like I'd hurt myself quite badly, and looked quite comical doing so. She sounded as though she was quite concerned and yet still doing everything she could to fight off laughter. And failing. I turned towards her with a rather sheepish grin spread across my muzzle, shaking my paw a little. "I'm alright, I'm alright. I just banged my paw on something, and tripped. Hit my jaw on the ground."

"Poor dragon!" She came up to rub my nose, and then took my snout in her cold fingers, tipping it up and back a little. "You're not bleeding, but you cracked some scales. Probably got a nasty bruise under all that black and gray. Let me see your paw." She took my throbbing paw in her hands as well, and gently examined all of my toes, wincing when she made me yelp. "Sorry. Nothing's broken, though, it shouldn't hurt too bad for too long."

I grunted and set my paw down, though I leaned my weight onto my left paw for a little while. "I'll be fine, I think. My ego is bruised a lot more then my paw."

Kylah laughed, hooking wind blown hair back behind her ears. She rubbed my head, just between my eyes, and made me purr. Then she scratched at one of my bumpy eye ridges a little, and I leaned my head against her hand. "I can imagine it was! You did look pretty funny, running around like a playful hatchling, and then you just went sprawling flat on your face!"

"I've done worse and more embarrassing things," I admitted with a chuckle, immediately realizing I shouldn't have.

"Like what?"

I huffed a sigh, and looked away, then gave a soft yelp when she tugged on my ear. "Come on, Vraal, you have to tell me now."

"Oh, very well. There was one time when I was an adolescent, and somehow even more awkward and clumsy then I am now. I was walking through the lower mountain forests with this female I liked. Hoping to maybe get a chance at getting under her tail."

"Ooh, you dirty old lizard." Kylah playfully slapped the side of my neck.

"Yes. But I was a dirty young lizard, then. There was a small ravine, something so deep that a fall into it would really hurt us badly, or we couldn't climb back out. And there was an immense old fallen tree that bridged it, and we always used it to cross the ravine when we were on foot. So one day I thought I'd show her how fast I was, and sprint across the entire log! Which I'd done before, and thought I could do again! Of course I didn't realize until I was halfway across the log that it had rained the night before, and that the moss coating it was extremely slick...Just before I reached the other side, both my hind paws slipped out at once, and flew in opposite directions."

I let that sink in a moment, and Kylah's eyes went wide before she burst out laughing. "Oh, God! And you landed on your..."

"Yes," I said with a wince and a chuckle. "Right on them both."

"Oooh, your poor beast! That must have hurt."

"Seemed as though I was seeing stars for hours after that. My female was laughing so hard she was crying. She said I howled so loudly she thought I'd just changed genders. Took me ages to get off that log and I was limping for the rest of the day."

Kylah was laughing almost as hard as that female dragon had been, and soon I was laughing with her. It was far enough in the past that I had to admit, it must have been hilarious. It certainly deflated my young dragon's ego for quite a while, and I don't think I ever ran across that log again. I briefly wondered what happened to that female. She was one of the first dragons to leave once she reached adulthood, and I hoped that wherever she was, she was safe. I also hoped she'd forgotten seeing the young male dragon nearly neuter himself in an attempt to impress her.

Kylah rubbed my neck with her hand, then scratched under my chin. That had the effect of making my front legs shake just a little, and coaxed a deep, rumbling purr up my throat to ooze out my nostrils. "You're right, Vraal, at least you didn't do anything quite that embarrassing in front of me. Not yet, anyway."

"I'm certainly not planning to do it again, either."

Kylah scratched my chin a little more, then turned around to see what I'd tripped over. She followed the little furrow through the grass and dirt that my belly scales had made as I slide across the earth until she came to the spot I'd tripped. She nudged at something with her boot, then crouched down and began to dig into the frozen earth with her fingers. After a few moments she lifted hands and shook them, then rubbed at her reddened fingers. "Too damn cold! Maybe you can dig this out."

"What is it?" I asked, walking up behind her.

"Some kind of metal, I think."

"Metal? Really?" I moved around to the other side of her, and saw just a tiny bit of dark metal poking up out of the dirt, beneath a clump of grass. It looked as though it had been buried for a long time, and something must have just unearthed part of it not long ago. Weather or animal or something else I wasn't sure, but whatever it was, I wouldn't have found this before. "Ooh, maybe it's something I can add to my collection."

Kylah grinned, yanking her arms into her cloak like a turtle withdrawing its legs into its shell. "You dragons and your hoards."

I fixed her with a steely glare, growling under my breath. "I do not have a hoard. I have a collection."

"Whatever you say, Hoarder."

I snorted, and decided to ignore her. It was not a hoard! It was a collection! A collection of treasures that I hoarded in my home...a collection! The point was, I might have found something interesting to add to it! I unsheathed my claws and began to dig. The ground was hard and cold, but thanks to lengthy and sharp talons it was not too hard for me to dig into it. Before long I had unearthed the majority of the strange metal item, and though covered in dirt it seemed to be in surprisingly good condition. A little rust here and there, though steel forged by dragons was always considered very strong and quite resistant to aging and corrosion. Why? I had no idea. Because we'd been excellent steel workers when we put our minds too it, I supposed.

Once I had cleared the dirt from around it with Kylah watching in fascination, I pulled it free. It brushed off some of the dirt, and turned it over in my paws a few times. It was oddly shaped, and I had no idea what it was. At one end it was rounded and almost bowl shaped, deeply concave on the inside. Then it narrowed down and was more of a long tapered arch, flatter then the top part but still concave. There were small holes at even spaces along the bottom edge of the thing, and two larger holes near where the bowl met the long arch.

"What is it?" Kylah asked, reaching out to touch the cold steel. She brushed away a little dirt and a little rust, exposing the darker metal beneath. She rubbed her fingers together, smearing them a rusty red.

"I'm not totally sure," I said, though I was starting to get an idea. I needed to clean it off, first. I searched around until I found a good sized pocket of crusty snow beneath the shadow of a moss-covered stone block. For a little while I rubbed pawfuls of cold snow on it till I'd gotten the most of the dirt and the rust off the old artifact, leaving it a much clearer, dark steel object. It was scuffed up and well worn, and I noticed an intriguing dent just above one of the larger holes. I was starting to get an idea what it was, and if I was right, that dent indicated it had once saved a dragon's life.

"I think I know what it is," I said, settling back on my haunches again to hold it in both paws.

"What?" Kylah asked, sounding almost as excited as me.

I decided to show her instead of tell her. If I was wrong, I was going to look like a fool. But it certainly wouldn't be the first time, and it would probably make her laugh. I liked it when she laughed, and it would be well worth my embarrassment to hear her laughing again. I lifted the artifact up and turned it over, and placed it on my head.

As it turned out, I was right. It was a dragon's helmet. It settled down easily onto my head and as it turned out, it was a surprisingly good fit. The deeper part of the helm went across my head, scalloped edges near the back settled down around my horns, and the two big holes ended up sitting just in front of my eyes. The longer, shallower part of the helmet went down across my snout, two of the smaller holes settled near my nostrils. The other holes along the edges of it had probably been for straps that had long since been lost or disintegrated.

"It's a helmet!" I said, hatchling-like glee in my voice. I'd never found anything quite like that before! I'd seen a few pictures of dragons in armor before, but as well protected as we were naturally our egos often told us we didn't need any extra armor. I imagined that by the time we did start to craft armor that was more then ornamental, it was too little, too late.

"Oh, it is a helmet!" Kylah reached out and made a face, rapping the helmet with her knuckles. The loud clanging sound so close to my ears made me wince, but where I in battle, I'd rather take a weapon to the helmet then straight to my head. Kylah poked a finger at the same dent I'd already noticed. "Looks like it's seen some use, too."

"I saw that." I pushed myself to all fours, and stood as proud and noble as I could. I lifted my head and held it high, flaring out my wings, puffing up my chest, arching my tail and my neck. "Well? How do I look?"

"Like a silly old dragon wearing a dirty old helmet."

"Ah, get mounted," I sneered.

Kylah laughed and rubbed my neck with a hand. "You look very noble, Vraal."

That made me smile. Oh yes, I was definitely keeping this helmet. Though it felt odd against my head, and the way it fit between and around my horns compressed my central crest in a rather uncomfortable manner, I decided to just keep wearing it for now. I'd have to carry it around in my jaws or in a paw otherwise and I was afraid I'd forget it. I searched around the area where I'd found it, thankful I'd stubbed my paw on something interesting this time. When I was sure there was nothing else fascinating buried in that area, I decided to return to my tour. Though I couldn't help but wonder, if this old helmet was buried beneath the ruins, what else might I found with enough digging?

For the rest of the day I lead Kylah all around the ruins. I took her to the toppled tower, and showed her what was left of the once beautiful structure. I explained that the tower had been designed like an immense spiraling dragon's horn. Each story just a little smaller in circumference then the one behind it, with broad spiraling walkways ascending it both inside and outside, giving the entire tower an elegant artistic look. I showed her some of the blocks of stone that now littered the ground across the plateau and where I could, pointed out part of the outer spiral design that marked the former tower.

I showed her what was left of statues of dragons, and when we found a fully intact dragon's paw that had been carved palm up with the fingers extended as though holding something, Kylah decided to keep it. It must have been heavy for her to lug it around, but she didn't complain and I was glad to see her taking such an interest in my people.

When I could I tried to explain a little about our former culture, though much of it was lost even to me. As far as I knew, our palace city did have a monetory system, though it was only occasionally used. More often we had bartered and traded, giving away something one dragon wanted for something the other wished for in return. Or trading one service for another. We had hunted both for individuals and families, and we had hunted for the city. Great pens of livestock and prey were kept full at all times, and vast butcher shops kept stocks of meat available for other dragons. As far as I knew, the availability of bartering ensured that even dragons relegated to relative poverty where always able to procure food. And of course they could always take wing and hunt themselves. Our old cities had celebrated the changing of each season every year with a massive city wide festival everyone participated in, drinking and eating and mating and dancing in the sky, draping the entire white marble city with brilliant banners of color that changed for each season. Some semblance of those traditions had carried over to my village in our own small festivals, but most of the history of our people's culture was long lost to us. I knew though that art and creativity had been heavily prized, as did the ability to hunt and prowess in combat. We had always considered ourselves a warrior people, after all we were the strongest creatures in the world. But we had always sought to balance our enjoyment of battle with an intellectual talent, as well. Dragons once had poets, bards, story tellers and all manner of artists, though all that was left of them now were the few books that still remained intact. Many of which now resided within my hoard.

...Collection!

Damn.

I took Kylah into the rooms and buildings that were still intact. Inside some of them I could show her statues that had not yet weathered away. There were a few that depicted dragons in happy, and noble positions, and another that depicted our softer side, two dragons with their muzzles pressed together, engaged in a gentle but passionate kiss. There had once been a fountain in that room, though the stone stairs water used to cascade over were long since dry and crumbling away. I imagined the room deep inside the former palace had probably been a room the ruling dragons had come to relax and spend time with their mates, but that was merely a guess. Another room had carvings across all the walls, of dragons in flight, of dragons in battle, and of another dragon city, long since vanished from the earth. This city was carved in winding steps that curled around the expanse of a tall mountain. A little like the spiral design of the fallen tower only on a much broader scale. I had never seen the remains of that city in person, though I doubted it was in any better condition then this one.

We wandered for a while, inside the ruins, just enjoying each other's company. I showed her every place I knew of inside the ruins, and together we explored other parts, too. Digging around in the rooms still intact, poking around beneath the crumbled walls of another tower, turning over stones inside what had once been a courtyard. We found nothing else as exciting as the helmet I still wore, but I was sure if we spent more time exploring the place, we would find much more. Perhaps if we came back later, and spent a few days here...

What was I talking about! It wasn't as though she was going to be spending her life here now. In a few weeks at most, she would want me to take her away to a city she could be safe in, a place she could start her own new life. Or, a place she could plan out her attempt to retake her own home, an objective that might very well cost her her own life. Still, dismayed as I was to feel how heavy my heart became with that thought, it was not my business, nor my decision to make.

I worked to keep myself cheerful, pointing out everything I could about the place I treasured so much. Eventually it was getting dark out, and I realized we had lingered longer then I'd planned, and we still hadn't quite covered the whole place. I was happy to hear that Kylah would indeed like to return before she left me, and I promised to bring her back. I also promised we would plan ahead next time and bring some food with us! I didn't know about her but I was starving. And it was only going to get colder and colder, so the sooner I got her back to my home the better. I'd have to make do with food from my larder once we returned.

Before long we had taken to the skies again, and despite the cold wind threatening to pop the stitches holding her cloak's hood to the rest of it, Kylah seemed to want to talk on the way back. "You were right, you know."

"What do you mean?" I glanced back at her. I knew the way home well enough that I didn't really need to look where I was going, as long as I wasn't too close to flying into the side of a mountain or anything.

"You told me before that you dragons were great once. That you made great things! That you hadn't always lived in caves, and that you used to live in beautiful palaces. I..." She paused a moment, and as her voice softened I could barely hear her over the howling winds in my frilled ears. "I didn't believe you. I thought you were just a bitter old creature straining to grasp at some reason to be so angry at the world. But I was wrong. You...your people...you really did lose everything. I'm sorry, Vraal."

For some reason, that warmed my heart, and though I wasn't sure she could see it in the darkness, and beneath my new helmet, I turned my head again to smile back at her. "Thank you, Kylah. It wasn't you, though. You didn't wipe us out."

Kylah was silent a little while. She patted my neck, and I could hear her sigh. I wasn't sure if she meant me to hear her words or not, she almost sounded as though she were speaking to herself about something she didn't yet want me to hear. "You're not wiped out, yet. You could still do something great. You could make yourselves great again."

Make ourselves great again. What a wonderful concept. If only it were possible. She sounded as though she had some idea of how I could accomplish that, and I grimaced. I could probably guess what she would suggest, and I wasn't sure who it would better serve. Probably her. It was only a guess though, and even if I was right, I doubted she meant it so selfishly. But even if I did what I thought she was considering, it would probably get me killed.

Yet, the idea was there now. Make ourselves great again. Was it possible?

Chapter Nine

Make ourselves great again. The thought was with me all the way home, and long into the night. For a lazy old dragon like myself, it was quite late when we got home, and even I was getting cold flying about in the autumn night air, so high up in the mountains. I kept my paws tucked up against my body for warmth as much as streamlining, and I beat my wings much more then usual just to keep them warm. I was sure Kylah must have been cold as well, but she stayed huddled in her cloak, up against my back and the back of my neck, out of the wind as much as possible.

It was nice to get back to my home, the air down inside my sleeping chamber felt unusually warm, my wings, ears, crests and paw pads were all tingling before long as they warmed up. I walked around a little, shaking out my paws, and Kylah couldn't help but laugh at the way it made me look. Especially considering I still had that old helmet on my head.

"You look like a dog who's got snow stuck between his paw pads."

"I feel like I have snow stuck between my paw pads."

Kylah took off her cloak, rubbing her hands together, and set about finding herself some dinner. She'd taken back a little of that morning's meal to set aside for later, and soon brought it out to eat, along with some drinking water. When I was significantly warm I did the same, fetching myself some nicely cured meats and some water. As well as a little wine to warm myself up. I'd promised Kylah some of the ceremonial Kraalgor before she left but that was going to be a special occasional. I poured a little wine into her cup for her as well, and before long we'd both warmed up nicely.

I wasn't sure yet where to put my new helmet, so after I took it off I settled it down atop the stone dragon's head I had also acquired from the ruins. Kylah put her stone dragon's paw there as well as the chunk of rock she'd inadvertently kicked loose from the foundation of the former wall. They looked good together, and I decided if I was able to find more pieces of dragon armor and statuary I might have to clear out a section to start a new collection. I had so many things strewn about already I was sure I'd be able to make plenty of room if I'd just clean my sleeping chamber up, but that probably wasn't going to happen any time soon.

Or ever.

I settled down on my furs, twisting down a bit to scratch at my healing shoulder. I'd gotten irritated with the bandage and taken it off only a day or so after Kylah had applied it, but my wound was healing well enough. It was now just an angry, puffy pink line rising up from the black scales of my shoulder. It itched like hell though which I suppose meant it was healing swiftly at least.

"Don't scratch at it, Vraal."

"Yes, mother," I muttered under my breath, sprawling out on my belly, careful not to bump my bruised chin against anything but the multi-toned furs that made my bed.

"I'm happy to act like your mother if it keeps you from opening that wound again," Kylah said, smiling at me from her place on the floor.

In her time here she'd taken to sleeping next to me, composing herself a bed of her own from all the spare soft animal furs I gave her. She made her bed just next to my own, far enough away so that should I roll over in my sleep I didn't inadvertently roll over atop her. Considering that I'd never accidentally squashed my children when they were still freshly hatched and always wanted to curl up with their mother and me, I didn't think I'd roll over onto her, either. Then again, it might have been a little awkward to wake in the morning and find myself cuddled up with a human as well.

At the moment Kylah was laying on her back, the dark blue tunic she had on today stood out well against the mostly white and gray furs she'd chosen for herself, taken from tundra dwelling animals well suited for the cold climate. Her dark brown hair was a mess as usual after flight, but laying on her back it fanned out and framed her face like the plumage of a beautiful auburn bird. She was watching me, her green eyes glittering with mischief even as fatigue sunk in.

"You should have let me bandage it again," she said with a smirk.

"It itched." I lay my head down against the furs, my chin and paw aching just slightly. Hopefully the lingering pain would be gone by morning. Even if it wasn't, it was well worth it to get a hold of that helmet.

"You're scratching it without the bandage, too, so you should have let me put on another one."

"It's healing just fine."

"Stubborn old lizard."

The playful tone of Kylah's voice made me smile. That was something I called myself often enough, and the realization that she'd picked up on it made my spiny crests and frilled ears flush with heat. I just hoped that in the dim blue light the rush of blood to them wasn't as immediately visible as it felt.

It was. "Blushing dragon," Kylah muttered, and I could tell she was starting to fall asleep already. I didn't reply, just smiled a little more and licked my muzzle. Before long her breathing had evened out, and I decided to just let her sleep. I knew I needed the sleep as well, but despite my fatigue sleep did not want to come to me as easily as it had come to her.

I lifted my head, and for a little while I just watched her sleep. It was surreal for me to see a human fast asleep right next to me, in my home. In the years past I never would have allowed it. Hell, in my youth I might not have even turned around to save her in the first place. I'd barely convinced myself to do so as it was. And yet, here I was, laying right next to a sleeping human.

She looked sublimely peaceful, laying on her back, one arm across her belly and the other draped up behind her head, her body slowly rising and falling with her breath. It made me wonder if I looked half that peaceful when I was asleep. Niara certainly had, but I couldn't help imagining that I looked like a stubborn old beast even in my deepest slumber.

I lay my head back down, this time curling my neck to rest my head against my un-bruised paw. I closed my eyes, but could not fall asleep. Eventually I opened the again, and found myself staring across the room, at the statue of the dragon's head with the helmet resting atop it. The statue seemed to be staring back at me, accusing me of something. I could almost hear the dragon's voice that once bore that helmet, cursing me, accusing me of something though I simply couldn't hear what it was.

I shifted my eyes for a moment towards the three human skulls covered by the fur so that Kylah wouldn't want to look at them. For some reason, I found myself wondering if they had looked as peaceful as Kylah when they slept, before I killed them. I wasn't sure why I wondered about that all of a sudden. I had felt no guilt when I'd killed them. On the contrary I had felt quite satisfied to take their lives. After all they had very nearly taken the life of my son. To this day, assuming he was still alive, I wasn't sure that he'd ever be able to fly again.

Aside from taking a dragon's life, the worst thing you could take from him was his flight. A dragon who could not fly was no dragon at all.

Wherever he was, I hoped he could fly.

Strange. I felt no guilt at all about the men I had killed throughout my life, and yet now I found myself wondering about them, and about the lives I had taken away. Did they look peaceful when they slept? Did they have mates who loved them, who missed them? Where they as cold blooded and heartless towards other humans as they were to dragons, or where they warm, and gentle to their own kind?

I had killed men before I'd met Kylah, and I had killed men before the dragon slayers came for my son. But I had never killed in cold blood, nor would I. Humans or not, I was not a murderer, and I would not take the life of a sentient creature unless it was in defense. Even when I had raided trade caravans in my younger days, I did not kill the humans there to protect them. I would certainly protect myself, but without lethal force. Those guards had not come to seek me out, I had sought them out, and they were only defending their lives, and their cargo. But when humans did come to take my life, or that of my family, and friends, I would defend myself and those I lived without mercy, and without guilt.

Never before had I even given a second thought to the lives and possible family of the humans who had sought to take my life, and lost their own in the process. Yet know it was weighing heavily on my mind, as though Kylah's mere presence was enough for me to think about humans in a totally different way. I could almost feel the eyes of the human skulls boring into my through the brown animal hide draped across them, and it made my shiver. My scales clicked a little, and rustled against the soft furs beneath me.

I rolled over onto my side, wriggling back and forth to get comfortable against the furs. My vast black wings ended up draped against the furs behind me, and I lay my head back down against the soft hides as well. Now I was looking away from the human skulls, but right back at that helmeted statue. It still seemed be staring at me in anger, or disgust. I couldn't decide if it was furious with me for letting a human into my home, or for doing nothing to make us great again.

Make us great. If only. It was too late for that. Despite what Kylah might think, our species was done. Whatever population we had left was scattered to the winds, we were but dead seeds drifting across an ocean of sand. Sooner or later we would finish dying out, and then humanity could safety and happily go on with it's conquest of the world. Perhaps things would just be easier if we all died out faster, and stopped clinging to our empty, pointless lives.

If there was no future for our species, what was the point of lingering any longer?

Much as I tried to drown them out, those thoughts kept running through my head until I finally drifted off to sleep. I knew, somehow, that as I slept that dragon's head was only going to stare at me, angrier with me then ever.

I must have talked in my sleep. When I awoke the next morning, bleary-eyed and groggy, Kylah was already awake. I rose to all fours with a groan, stretching my wings out on both sides of my body. I tried without success to work a kink out my tail, and then began to stumble towards the chamber with the stream I used to empty my bladder.

Kylah laughed a little at my woozy stumbling, and I nearly bumped into the far wall. "Didn't sleep well, eh Vraal?"

"Not particularly, no." I paused to glance back at her a moment, flicking my tail tip.

"I didn't think so. I woke about an hour ago, and your paws were twitching, and you were muttering something about a dragon's head watching you. Wanting you to be great."

"Oh..." I cast my eyes down to my paws a moment, wondering what else I'd been mumbling about while I slept. Then I looked back at the statue's head, and trying to make light of things, I hissed at it. "You stay out of my dreams!"

That made Kylah giggle, which made me laugh a little. Though it didn't make me feel better. I couldn't recall my dreams, but from what Kylah said I could piece together the general idea. After I'd relieved myself and then washed up a little in my bathing pool, I returned to my sleeping chamber to find Kylah running a brush through her hair. She must have washed it earlier while I slept because the monster looked tame once more.

"Hope I didn't keep you up with my sleep talking," I said, settling down upon my haunches and coiling my tail around myself.

"Not at all." Kylah smiled and reached out to stroke my nose. "I woke up feeling pretty refreshed, actually. But I hope you weren't having a nightmare about some giant dragon's head chasing after you!"

She laughed a little, and so did I. I flicked my ears back and scratched at my chin with a single claw. "I've no idea," I admitted. "I can't remember at thing from my dreams last night. I do remember it took me an awfully long time to fall asleep."

"At least you'll sleep better tonight. I would have thought all that flying would wear you out! But I guess you're probably used to it."

I stretched my wings again, and as if reminded they were supposed to be sore, my back and wing joints suddenly ached. I groaned a little. "Thanks for reminding them."

"Sorry," Kylah said, and stood up. I noticed she'd found herself some clean clothes today. A dark green blouse with ivory buttons, and dark brown breeches with black lacing. She'd also found a new pair of leather boots, they looked as though they were in better condition and probably fit her better. "Want me to rub them for you?"

That was a hard offer to resist. I lowered myself down onto my belly, and then dropped my wings down as well. "Please. I see you've found myself some new clothing. Amazing how much trash I have hidden around here."

Kylah walked up alongside me, and wrapped both her hands around my left wing joint. She began to gently massage the thick muscles around the bone that held my wing to my body, and soon I was happily groaning and purring. There were no scales there, not until my wing melded with my back, near my shoulder, and so her warm fingers were pressing directly into tender skin and sore muscle. By the time she'd finished massaging one wing joint, and moved around me to work on the next, I was practically drooling on the floor.

"Kylah," I said, barely more then a murmur. "There's something I wanted to ask you, if I may. Something I've wondered about."

"Go ahead," she said, starting to work her fingers into the muscle of my other wing joint.

I was almost purring too loudly to continue. But, we were friends now, or close to it, and something that had been pacing around the back of my mind had come forward again. I felt more comfortable asking her this now then I did when it had first occurred.

"When I first met you, after I killed those men. I expected you to be a lot more...disgusted, I suppose, then you were."

"You mean you're surprised I didn't scream at the sight of blood?" She asked me with a wry smirk. "Because I'm a human, or because I'm a woman?"

I chuckled a little, and gave my head a slight shake, twisting my ears. "No, I mean...well, I nearly ripped a man's face off, and crushed another's head. Blood is one thing, ruptured brains are another."

She made a face at that, and looked away. "I knew what they were going to do to me, Vraal. Maybe their occupation has made me cold, but I had little pity for those men. They had killed some of my friends, raped others, burned down homes...they got what they deserve. Besides, I told you. Everyone in my village learns to fight. Even before we were occupied by those soldiers, our area was sometimes a haven for bandits. We had to assign guards to all our trade caravans to protect them. I've...I've fought before, Vraal. Even before the soldiers attacked us, I'd killed people in battle."

"I see," I said, still purring at her attention to my aching muscles, even as my mind wandered to less pleasant things. "Those...soldiers who invaded. They must be pretty good if they could oppress a whole village of warriors."

Kylah shrugged. "Some of them are. But there are a lot of them, and they're all cowards. They don't simply stand and fight us, they threaten our families with retaliation, threaten to burn us in our homes while we sleep, poison our water, take our children back to their fortress and force them into their pathetic little army..." As Kylah spoke her fingers were tightening until she was hurting my wing, and I finally gave a little whimper of pain. She quickly released, and rubbed my aching wing joint. "Sorry, Vraal! I didn't mean..."

"I know," I said with a little smile. "I did not mean to upset you, either. I was just curious. So...some of your people are afraid to fight back, because even if they win the immediate battle, they are worried about what might happen to their families, and their village, in the long run."

"Right." She rubbed my wing a little more, and then pulled her hands away, wringing them.

I pushed myself back up into a seated position. "And still you wish to try and force them out."

"I can't just sit there and watch them destroy us without trying to stop them."

A noble ambition. The same thing I sometimes wished my people had done. Instead, we stood back and watched humanity trample us underfoot like beautiful flowers ground into nothingness. An awkward silence hung between us like a pall at a funeral, and I finally broke it, rustling my wings a bit.

"My wings feel better," I said, smiling a little.

"I'm glad," She smiled back at me a moment, and then blurted out the words I knew would come eventually. "You could help us, Vraal!"

"I can't..." I began, hanging my head anjd hoping this wouldn't end as badly as I expected.

"You can!" Kylah came around to stand in front of me, her green eyes wide, and her hands balled into tight fists. "I saw the way you killed those men, Vraal..."

"I can't..." I repeated, lowering my head.

"You can! You can help us, Vraal! You can help..."

"Is that all you wanted from me?" I lifted my head again, this time with fire burning in my pale blue eyes. "Is that why you asked me to bring you here? I saw the way you held that sword, Kylah, and you told me yourself you've killed men before. I saw you make that knife from stone, and you told me you could survive days in the wilderness. You probably could have hid from those men on your own, couldn't you? But you asked me to bring you here...after you saw how easily I killed them." I flared my wings a little, bile rising in my throat and fire bile dribbling onto my tongue as my emotions flared up just like my spiky crests. "So was that it? You only wanted to come here to talk me into helping you? Into getting myself killed, giving my own life just to try and free your village."

Kylah didn't seem to know what to say. Maybe I was wrong, but there were just to many little things that stood out in an odd way. She glared into my eyes for a moment, then finally heaved a great sigh. For a few seconds, it looked like all the life had gone out of her. She hung her head and stared at her boots, her shoulders slumped, and her angry fists relaxed into limp fingers. "...Yes."

So. That was it then. The whole friendship we'd built, the seemingly impossible companionship I'd found with a human had been built on a lie. Maybe it wasn't really a lie, she knew all along I could easily say no, and she knew she'd be safer with me then with those men. If they had trackers they might well have found and killed her, anyway. And it wasn't as though she'd ever outright lied to me about why she asked to come with me. She just never came out and said it.

So why did it feel like she'd just plunged a sword of ice straight into my heart? The first time I'd trusted humans, they had betrayed me, and had literally stabbed me in the chest when their use for me was finished. The second time I'd trusted a human, I'd been stabbed in the back by words and secret desires. I wondered for a moment, if the friendship that had ignited between us was ever real, or if she'd merely been feigning it to gain my trust.

I rose to all fours, and pushed past her brusquely. I needed to fly. I needed to clear my head, and get away from the little liar for a while. Yet it hurt me to think that about her. Was she really a liar? She'd never lied to me outright, she'd just...she'd tried to use me. Yet could I really blame her? If I could have used a human to save a group of dragons, wouldn't I do the same? That didn't make me feel any better about being the one used.

"Vraal, wait!"

I ignored her and kept walking. To think I'd taken her out to see the ruins! To think I'd bathed with her, played games with her, held her in my arms like we were the only two creatures left in the world. It occurred to me, as I made my way out of my sleeping chamber and into the tunnel, that she had initiated all of those things. She had taken my head in her arms when I was sorrowful and held me against her. She had playfully taken to attacking me with mud as though I'd been friends with her for ages. She had asked to see our ruins. And...and she had admitted to me when no other human would have that she'd been wrong about our people.

That she'd been wrong about me.

I came to a stop, thinking that over. Was our friendship...was it real?

"Vraal, wait, please! Please wait!" Kylah's tearful, sorrowful voice told me it was. Either that, or she was one of the greatest actors the world had ever seen. She latched onto my tail as if she could actually stop me from walking away, her fingers tight against the gray scales that tipped my black tail. "Vraal, please! I...I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean to hurt you, or use you, I just...Vraal, I was desperate for someone to help my people! And you...you were such a good person, you came and protected me and risked your own life, your own secrecy just to save me. You didn't have to do that! I could see it in you then, that dragon or not, you were a good person. And I tried to use that, I tried to take advantage of that, and I never should have! Vraal, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry..."

Kylah was clinging to my tail like a drowning woman holding a lifeline. I had the strange feeling that if I pulled my tail from her grasp, she would collapse then and there, and that would be the end of things for us. I'd take her to some human city, drop her off at a safe distance, and never see her again. She'd no doubt end up getting herself killed for the noble yet suicidal cause of trying to save her people. Yet, if I let her keep her grip on my tail, if I turned towards her and listened to what she had to say...

I would get to keep her in my life a little longer.

Earlier, when she told me she was sorry for what had happened to us as a species, when she told me she was sorry that she didn't believe me, somehow I just knew she meant it. There was something in her voice that told me she was telling the truth. She really was sorry she hadn't believed me about what our species had been. She really was sorry that our species had been nearly wiped out...

And she really, truly was sorry that she came here with the intent to use me like a weapon, like an expendable soldier.

Her grip had tightened until the end of my tail was acting terribly, and I imagined her fingers must be hurting even worse. I very slowly turned around to face her, and she refused to let go of my tail until she was absolutely sure I wasn't going to simply walk away from her as soon as it finally slipped from her fingers. Her cheeks were stained with tears, her emerald eyes were so bloodshot they were nearly scarlet, and fear like I had never seen on her face even when the men were about to rape her covered her like a death mask. It suddenly seemed like more then anything, she was afraid of driving me away. Afraid of losing me.

Forgive always.

"Kylah..." I said, having trouble finding my own voice. When it finally came, it was scratchy and soft instead of deep and brassy. "Kylah, are we friends?"

"Yes! Yes, Vraal...we are..." She took a step towards me, and I realized she was trembling.

"Are we really?" Asking such a question made me feel awkward, unsure, like an adolescent taking his first shaky steps with a female he was falling in love with.

"Yes, Vraal," she said, and somehow her voice got even softer. "I wanted to talk you into helping me. But...everything that's happened since I've been here has been real. I told you that you were nothing like I expected from a dragon, and I meant that in every way. Vraal, I...I don't have many friends left in the world, and none like you. I was so very wrong about you it makes me sick, and to see how that's hurt you...You've been hurt enough, Vraal. You don't need me hurting you anymore. We are friends, Vraal, if you still want my friendship. I wouldn't risk it on asking you to fight for us anymore, and I'd never ask you to risk your life for it. I didn't mean for it to hurt you, Vraal, I just..."

Kylah was starting to ramble a little, and still crying. Somehow, and against my better judgment, I believed her. Maybe I was simply desperate to have someone else I could believe in, maybe I'd come to enjoy her company so much I was willing to believe anything just to keep her around a little longer. Maybe she really was telling the truth. I slowly moved towards her, and pressed my head against her chest. She immediately wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tightly. She buried her head against my scales and started to cry.

"I forgive you, Kylah," I murmured.

Forgive always.

Do something great. Make yourself great again.

I was starting to see why that stone dragon was staring at me so accusingly. Yes, Kylah came here to try and talk me into helping her people, which might well cost me my life. But at least she was doing something! Her people were dying, their enemies had their boots upon their throats and were slowly pushing down harder, and harder. Kylah was one of the few people who were trying to fight back, to protect her own kind...What had we done, when it was our backs against the wall, our wings against the ground and our bellies exposed to the steel of our enemies? We cowered, we hid, and we died.

What good was life if we let it slip through our claws, never made a mark on the world, never helped those who needed it? I had done one good deed, and that was saving Kylah. Could I do more? Could I save many people? We were fading from the earth, but before we were utterly spent, why not leave a mark beyond hatred, beyond anger and revenge. Why not do something great for someone?

Do. Something. Great.

I would.

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