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The Coming of Dragons

Chapter Seven

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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"How long do you think you spend down here every day?"

Arya flicked her tail, heart-shaped at the tip, musing over a set of clay tablets that she had tried to take back to the surface, but that Alan had guarded too jealously for her to steal away. They ranged in size and some had been stored in "cupboards" of sorts, that were merely hollowed-out holes in the walls. It was oddly familiar to look through them, as if she was researching something, albeit more historical than the technical field of study that she had delved into back in university. University...college...

Ugh.

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She made a face, the muscles in her muzzle twitching and pulling, though they had changed too, needing to balance her more delicate, antler-like horns on top of her head, different to the other dragons, even if they all had very similar shapes to their wings. Things there...her studies... It was all gone, behind her, though a part of her ached for it, the life she had pursued.

Whether she was in the outside world or there as a dragon, she could still push on, could still be who she was, finding that drive again. It was all the same. It was hard to make such differences known between them when all of them there were from all walks of life, words contrasting with each other.

But the tablets gave her something to focus on, even though it was dim down there. Some of the larger tablets had deep engravings in them that looked like they had been carved by a dragon that was newer to using their claws in such a way, the edges of the grooves roughed up and unfinished. That didn't mean, however, that they were unreadable in any way. It only made them more interesting to the dragoness, though the smallest of them, barely even a couple of inches large, hard and yet brittle to her large, clawed feet that she was trying to use as hands.

She sighed. Everything was difficult, relearning things that she had learned before she could even remember them, back when she'd been human, of course. It would have been far more pleasant to delve into them in the light but she sort of understood her secrecy too. It was something that Alan had been working on for so long that it made sense and she had guarded projects just as jealously when she had been human too.

Despite being in different fields of study, they were similar. That much Arya could respect.

"Hm..." Alan pulled herself out of her musing, so deep in thought that it was hard to find her way back to reality at times, the soft light down there glinting off her red-brown scales. "Maybe seven hours? There is little else to do... It's kind of you to bring me food, thank you. I want to ensure that I know all that there is to know before the eggs are laid."

Arya shivered. Ah, yes: the eggs. The eggs were the centre of their lives and yet the warmth she felt towards the precious life stored within her womb was tangled up in worry. Quite fair worry, really, considering that she had never had intercourse unprotected before, too focused on her studies and her career, all the internships and projects that she'd taken on, to want to intercept it in some way. Arya wasn't even all that sure that she'd wanted a family as a human woman, but it was far too late to wonder if she could turn back the clocks. The "deed" of entering the caverns was done. All that was to bear was the consequences.

"Alan..." She said slowly, tasting and rolling the words around her muzzle before letting them fly forth. "Do you ever think about going back to the university? To study again?"

Alan tilted her head, suddenly appearing so human-like that Arya chuckled against her will. Though her horns were medium-sized, they still accentuated the motion a lot more, though none more so than with Brent.

"To study? But isn't that what I'm doing here?"

Alan smiled, spreading out her claws over the tablets she had, though she was engaged in matching them up to what was on the wall rather than digging up fresh detail.

"To uncover a civilisation... It is a science in itself, considering how it has affected our bodies too, our transformations. To think that this existed and we never even knew about any of it... It's amazing, truly. It is something far greater than what I could ever have studied as a man."

"And the eggs?"

She pushed on into the thing that really concerned her, what had her lying awake at night even with Brent by her side, the other dragoness' presence more comforting than any of the others. She felt them inside her even though she did not show in the shape of her body: she supposed there was more than enough space inside to hold a clutch without revealing that she was pregnant. But she did not know whether the pregnancy had heralded any changes in her too, mental, emotional or physical, as it seemed to have begun with all of them at the point of their transformations.

There was no way to tell.

Alan took a moment to answer and Arya could imagine her pushing her glasses back up her nose. She might even have thought it cute before.

A long time before.

"That's different," she said slowly. "I... I don't know what to think about those. But I will know. Once I study enough."

Arya looked her over strangely.

"What do you mean by that? There's no answer down here that can tell you how you're supposed to feel."

Alan laughed hollowly, stirring up a puddle of ground-down rock with the tip of a claw. That had been worn away more and more by the grinding of her claw as she read and deciphered and pieced together what images meant, though not from any stark moment of blissful revelation.

"Yes... Yes, there is. There is so much history here, civilisation details, personal records... They were left for us, Arya. Everything we need is down here."

She acted on impulse, though Arya did not quite know what she was doing, even then. One moment she was sitting on her haunches and the next she was on her feet, moving in close to Alan and winding her tail around that of the other dragoness. Alan flinched but she was not dissuaded so easily, settling down beside her, sharing the feel of scales on scales with one that, to be fair, she had not been all that close with yet.

"Alan," she said, gentleness softening her tone. "It's alright to be scared. I am too."

Alan quivered, taking a deep, rattling breath as if her lungs would no longer operate steadily. Just how could it be that Arya had known?

"I..."

"It's okay."

Quiet spoke louder than some words, even if they did need to be exchanged too at some point. Arya took a deep breath, her lungs expanding out and out against Alan's side.

"You don't need to worry... Well, I am worried too, so it may seem like it's not making much sense for me to tell you that."

She paused, mulling over just what it was that she wanted to say.

"What I'm trying to say is...you can't hide down here and escape from everything. We have an open tunnel now for everyone to come and go as they please. There's nothing that we need to do to preserve what is here, there's no one near that will concern us. Anniyah and Jenson were even talking about building up some barriers to stop hikers wandering up here, though it's a hard enough route to get to the caves in the first place."

Alan nodded.

"They're not especially popular, I suppose..."

"That's not what I tried to say, what I wanted you to focus on. I want you to know that we are safe here. Nothing bad is going to happen."

She nudged the other dragoness' cheek, leaving her nose there, the contact sending a shiver through Alan's hide.

"You don't have to work yourself to death to make things alright. They already are."

Alan closed her eyes against the reality of it. No... No, things were not alright.

"You're scared too though," she whispered, barely able to raise her voice above that husky tone. "How can I believe you that everything is okay, that it will be alright, when you are scared too?"

Arya leaned in closer, winding her neck just the once around Alan's. It was a strange gesture but one that had become oddly more and more comfortable to her of late.

"I hope you will. But that's because I'm scared too that you should believe me. I'm not giving you false platitudes or telling you something that I don't believe for myself. If I can find a purpose in this, while we work out how to reconnect to our families and friends in some way, you can too. But that purpose is not something that should tie you up every day, even to the point of forgetting to eat unless someone else plants it right in front of your nose."

Alan squirmed, chuckling throatily.

"I suppose I have been especially bad at remembering to eat..."

"See, that already sounds more like you. And I don't even know you that well yet, even though I'd like to. We can't get to know our sister, after all, when she's buried herself down her."

Alan shook her head.

"I guess that must seem really foolish to you... I haven't even really stretched my wings yet, though I can fly a little, just a little."

Arya stood, shaking off the tension from her green scales, a smile already stretching her lips a little, showing a glimmer of feral teeth and a glint in her eye that promised mischief.

"Then why don't we go see just what being a dragon might mean to you, Alan? There is more to learn in the doing. A teacher must be well-rounded for the betterment of all."

Alan laughed out loud, surprising herself with how easily the mirth leapt to her lips.

"I think you picked up that word from me."

"Only from the best. Now, are you coming or not?"

For, despite the trepidation and all that lay ahead all of them, it was all of them that were going through it. It was new and it was fresh and, sometimes, what they had lost (or temporarily misplaced) didn't have to be addressed immediately. Being a dragon was about learning and growing in all aspects of life, their memories their most precious treasures. Pushing down the past in lieu of fresh information was not how things were best undertaken.

They would all learn that, in time.

But the relief of a day was best solved, in the moment, wingtip to wingtip, as friends.