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The Dragon Stones

A Short Story

Part of Rise of the Mother of Dragons

By: Heart Dragon

From the Author: Thank you for reading. I have really enjoyed getting your comments and seeing your interest in my stories. Please keep reading and spreading the word about the stories and I will certainly keep writing them. I love you all and thank you again.

Heart Dragon

Tilly didn't really want to be awake so she cuddled tighter against the soft warm body curled around her and tried to remain asleep. She knew it was a conscious decision and therefore hopeless, but it didn't change what she wanted. She lay there for a few more minutes anyway, enjoying all her senses of the experience. The feel his soft scales all over her skin, and the strange but pleasant smell of that skin, like fresh spring rain falling in a glade of wildflowers. It intoxicated, filling her with emotions, though none connected to any one thing, and no memories, only the untinctured emotions themselves without cause or reason. It wasn't just the good emotions, or the ones she'd always been taught were good. There was jealousy, hate, and fear, and a myriad of others, less strong, but no less powerful, but all was balanced. Even with all those things welling up inside her, both good and bad, she felt at peace.

"You are sending so strong I cannot pretend you are still sleeping." Arken said.

She felt his body shift all around her and then his head appeared. He propped his chin atop a coil of his tail and blinked his eyes, which now glowed with a golden light, though the eyes themselves were still green.

"While I do wish that I could lay here all day; I must hunt. I remain somewhat weak from healing my wounds." He said, his tongue flickering out and touching her skin. "You taste hungry too."

Tilly blushed as memories flickered through her mind at the touch of that supple tongue, though it was innocent enough and barley touched for a moment. She realized for the first time since waking that she was still naked and the heat spread from pinpoints in her cheeks all the way down to her neck. She had no idea why she should still feel such after the previous night, but she did.

"There are clothes for you here." Arken said, uncurling his body from around her.

She put her feet on the floor and stood, freeing the majority of him from beneath her. The stone floor was still warm where they had laid, and for that she was grateful when she remembered how much snow she'd seen through the windows. A few paces away lay a folded dress, a shift, and small-clothes all made of fine wool. Arken must have made or brought these things here by magic while she slept, and they were not the only changes to the place. The air was warmer than it had been the night before, and she could now see why. A fountain had been made near the wall of the great chamber, the base was almost as tall as her, and wide stone stairs led up to a bathing pool with little statues of lambs frolicking around the edge all cast in pure white marble. Steam rose from the surface of the water in hundreds of tendrils and water fell like rain in a circle at the fountains center from a spout that had been created in the ceiling.

She marveled for a moment until she realized how such splendor must have been created and blushed again, this time not in embarrassment but in anger.

"You did all this," she waved her hand to encompass the fountain and clothes both, "with Ra; didn't you?"

Arken nodded, his eyes glimmering with laughter. She suddenly realized that he'd grown back to his true size, if it was his true size. Her anger flowed out of her. She wanted to hold onto it, but it eluded her like trying to collect water in a leaky bucket.

"You were injured. You shouldn't have used any magic for me." She said, much more meekly than she'd intended.

Arken chuckled, the deep resonance had returned with his size, and she expected the floor to vibrate, though it did not. "I used our Ra Little Lamb. We made it together last night and it was only right that I used at least some of it for you."

"But your wounds." She said, ignoring the mountain of questions his statement raised in her mind clambering to be answered.

Arken twisted so that she could see the unbroken line of his wing, his back, and his leg, all of which had shown injuries the night before. Now they were smooth and unbroken by even a scar. The scales glimmered and shone with reflected light. Perfect.

"We made Ra together such as I have rarely seen. My wounds would have taken weeks to heal on my own, and might still have left scars, but you have healed me Little Lamb. Be content," he said, his lips pulling back in a smile at the unconscious blush that filled her cheeks at the very mention of the previous night.

Tilly didn't protest further, though further protests would have been futile because he turned even as he smiled and headed for the great wooden doors.

She watched as the doors opened before him, expecting to see the circle of trees and green grass of the clearing that had surrounded the mound on the island where they had entered, but that was not what was beyond the door. Instead she saw a landscape of broken stone and ice splayed far below the doors as if they were set at the very peak of some great mountain. Which they were, she realized. There might have been other places where these doors would open up too, but she suspected this was the true scene outside the great hall of the dragon.

"I will return by nightfall." Arken said, then launched himself through the doors and into the sky beyond. She saw him in the sky his wings beating hard and lifting him up towards the clouds, then her view was blocked off as the doors closed on the scene and she was left alone.

The loneliness that washed over her when he was gone was shocking and more powerful than she would have thought possible. She forced it away by occupying herself with small tasks. She took stock of herself. She felt better than she ever had. She coursed with energy and though the tidal force of emotions she'd felt at inhaling Arken's scent had almost gone, she could still sense it dimly. She might have expected her body to ache after the physical acts of the evening, but there was none of that.

She left the clothes sitting where they were and headed for the fountain. She didn't feel soiled, in fact she felt pure and clean in a way she hadn't felt before, but she knew the feeling wasn't exactly true. There was a slickness on her thighs and she could feel a tightness to her skin where something had dried there in the night, but more, she wanted to slide into the warm water and let it envelop her. It was almost a physical need, a pulling from within her, and she wanted to obey.

The water was exactly the right temperature for her. She sensed that it always would be, though not only for her. She thought the fountain's water would be whatever temperature the bather desired and knew it was true, though Arken hadn't told her this. It was some instinct that told her, and she proved it to herself by deciding the water was too warm. It cooled noticeably even as she thought of it being too hot. As she let thoughts of the water go it returned to the perfect temperature and she smiled to herself.

"What the sisters wouldn't have given to have a bath like this." She said to herself, remembering bathing days when she and several other girls had tended great kettles of water set to boil and adding measured buckets to the tubs to keep the water warm or to cool it as the sisters came three at a time to bathe in the great bronze tubs.

Around the edge of the pool were several submerged stone seats at different levels where one could sit, leaning back against the pools side. As she lowered herself down the water slid up her body, first over her thighs and butt, then up over her stomach. She gasped as the warmth seeped into her belly and her body began to pulse and absorb the warmth, welcoming it, drawing it in to a point just below her navel where it settled and thrummed like the wings of a hummingbird. She settled the rest of the way onto the seat, leaning back against the pools edge with a sigh of pleasure. The Ra of this pool was something special, she thought, as she closed her eyes and breathed in the clean steam that hovered just above the pools surface.

She closed her eyes and soaked for minutes, letting the warmth seep deeper into her, spreading up her body to her arms and down her legs until even her toes felt limp and relaxed. Her eyes drooped, though she wasn't really tired, and she realized she was already half asleep. She slid down, her hair floating around her on the water, and ran her hands over her head, dipping her hair into the water, then stood. There wasn't any soap, but she scrubbed her skin with her hands and ran her fingers through her hair until she felt at least somewhat clean, then stepped back out of the pool and onto the cool stone of the steps. The air felt cooler than it had before. She shivered, though not with the cold. The room felt less alive somehow now that Arken was not there.

She wrapped her arms around herself and hurried to don the clothing he'd left for her. The wool was softer than any she'd ever worn before, not scratchy or rough, rather a caress against her skin. It felt more like silk than wool, though she wasn't surprised. It was woven with Ra after all. The clothes were warm, but the chill didn't leave her. She was feeling lonely in the great empty hall by herself. She'd lived her whole life in a place crawling with other girls, the sisters, and even a few men on occasion. She didn't think she'd been alone for more than an hour at a time in her whole life before.

As the desire rose up inside her for people, she saw the great double doors at the end of the room begin to move inward. The white marble floor was splashed with warm yellow sunlight, nothing like the clear cold light coming in from the high windows around the chamber. She walked forward, closer to that light.

The doors opened wide as she approached. On the other side lay a wide sweeping field dotted here and there with some sort of short but widely branched trees. They stood only ten or twelve feet tall, but the branches spread out from them in great wide canopies, and the trunks were perhaps several feet thick with smooth papery looking bark. They were like nothing she'd ever seen before, certainly nothing in her own land.

The doors looked out from a position raised slightly above the field, which sloped down from her vantage towards a road and a village in the distance, perhaps a few miles away, though like no village she'd ever seen. The roofs of the buildings made of wood carved in swoops and curls that all seemed to move in a flow towards the corners where they flowed off like waves, though these were suspended in time, waves rising up but never crashing down. These magnificent oddities were painted in a myriad of colors that dazed the eye, blue, green, red, yellow, and more. Near the village, in a green field not far away, was something she was more familiar with, though it differed slightly in appearance, she could never mistake the look of a faire.

She stepped out of the doorway, her feet leaving the cool stone of the floor and landing in warm green grass. A warm breeze ruffled her skirt and hair for a moment then continued on past her creating waves of swaying grass across the open field. She could see people milling about the fair, moving among the tents, animals, and vendor's carts. She felt the pull of the fair and didn't want to ignore it.

She started off across the field at a trot, her body was feeling so energized that it didn't even want to simply walk. She laughed as the grass tickled her bare feet, raising her face to the sun, eyes half-closed.

In less than an hour she was approaching the edge of the fair by the road, which wound around from behind the base of the hill she'd come down. Atop the hill behind her were stone ruins amid which set the massive wooden doors set into what remained of a stone wall which must have been part of a larger structure at one time, but the rest of which was long fallen, the stones likely hauled off by industrious scavengers. She met few people moving on the road, though all those she had met were heading towards the fair, farmers and those from even smaller villages who had come to participate in the festivities.

As Tilly approached the entrance, set up between two large tents that looked made of paper, if one could believe that, and stepped off a little to the side and out of the way where she could watch the moving flow of people that crowded the makeshift streets between the gathered tents. The noise was raucous, though she'd had time to adjust to that already, having heard it grow louder as she'd approached along the road. In fact, she'd been able to hear it, smell it, and even feel it in the air as she got closer, like electricity in her nerves. Here the noise was nearly overpowering, and the odor of horse and sheep was mixed with a thousand others of baked bread, roasted meat, stale mead, and sweating men and women.

She realized that she was sweating as well. The wool was warm, perfect for the cold weather of the mountains, but here the sun shown down with summer's intensity and she could feel beads of sweat running down her back and legs. This made her notice the clothing of those around her. Most of them wore light garments of cotton or silk, though as brightly colored as the roofs of the houses in the village nearby. As she watched them she noticed the odd looks aimed at her. She hadn't realized how much she would stand out in this crowd. It wasn't only that she was garbed completely in hot wool, but that it was all purest white, the one color nobody here seemed to be wearing. It marked her as a stranger.

"Running away so soon Little Lamb?" A voice whispered in her ear from right behind her.

She jumped, startled, and gave out a little shriek. She couldn't help it.

Several people turned to look her way, though none of them seemed very interested, and she didn't notice them as she turned.

Standing there was a boy, just a boy, though she wasn't sure how anyone could have looked so beautiful and innocent and so smug at the same time. His head was bald, though that wasn't all that unusual here, in fact many of the men seemed to be either bald or had most of their head shaven, leaving only tufts or stripes to decorate their scalps, but she could almost see a familiar pattern, almost like scales, just beneath his skin. His face was wide and handsome with wide almond shaped eyes, oh those eyes. They were green as forests and as ancient as mountains. She knew those eyes, though they were somehow transplanted into a face no older and no less human than her own.

"You may want to close your mouth or you'll catch a fly." Arken said with a satisfied grin.

"I thought you were out hunting." She squeaked in reply.

He nodded. "Yes, and done hours ago." The grin slid off his face and was replaced with a slight frown. "I was a bit worried when I found you gone you know."

She shook her head. "What do you mean hours ago? I haven't been here that long. Perhaps an hour or two, but you said you'd be back by dark and it was only mid-morning when I came here."

"I see. I will have to explain how the doors work to you one day, but for now suffice it to say that time moves differently from one place to another beyond the doors. Here it moves much slower than others. An hour here is several hours where we came from." He explained quietly, leaning close so none of the passing people would overhear.

She realized that she was gaping again and closed her mouth with a small click of her teeth.

"You certainly picked a hot place to come wearing that," he said indicating her wool clothes.

She snorted. "I don't even know exactly how I got here. I was just feeling lonely and the doors opened up on their own."

Arven nodded. "The doors let you travel by need. You felt that you needed others to relieve your loneliness and the doors brought you to a gathering, luckily a friendly one. It takes practice to use the doors properly. They could have taken you to almost any type of gathering imaginable, and some you wouldn't have enjoyed at all."

"I'm sorry," she said, tears welling in her eyes. His tone had been soft, but still she could hear the worry there, worry for her. "I didn't know."

"Don't cry Little Lamb," he said, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. "I am not angry. I only wished you to know of the danger. Next time you will be forewarned."

She nodded, her face pressed into his shoulder.

"Come," he said, drawing away and brushing the tears from her cheeks." The feel of his touch was strange, less like fingers and more like his tongue had felt on her skin.

She looked at him closely. There was something strange about him. Of course he looked like a boy, but he didn't feel any different. When he hugged her she hadn't felt hands patting her back but paws.

It was as if he hadn't changed at all but was just all wound up into a shape that resembled the boy he appeared to be.

He saw the look and nodded. "I can't actually turn into a human, but I can make myself appear as if I were." He took her hand. "Let's go see some of these people you were so anxious to be around." He led her through the crowd seeming to find a path through the milling people without jostling or bumping any of them. She knew she couldn't have done as well without him leading. She'd have been tossed about like a rowboat in a stormy sea.

First they went to a large open tent where clothes were on display. He gave her a handful of his silver scales, thicker and heavier than coins, and now that they weren't a part of him anymore, pure silver. The shopkeeper sold her a fine dress, yellow with embroidered vines and flowers in red and blue around the hem, which fell to just above her knees, and climbing up the sleeves to the shoulders. With the dress she bought several pairs of smallclothes and shifts. While she was choosing her clothes Arken bought her a pair of soft leather boots and stockings from another nearby merchant.

Outfitted and feeling much better for the cooler clothes she followed Arken through the crowd again, this time towards a fine large pavilion set up at the very center of the fair. There was more hustle and bustle here than anywhere else, and as they approached she could see why. The pavilion was filling up with performers and revelers who were either setting up for some fine evening event, in the case of the performers, or waiting to get a good seat, in the cases of the revelers.

In the center of the pavilion was a great brazier piled high with thousands of blue stones. She didn't know what their significance was, but the guards standing around the brazier and keeping even the performers away said something of their value. Another guard approached and attempted to turn them back, but a palm full of silver got them through to one of the round tables nearest the brazier at the center where a few other small groups had begun to gather as well, all wealthy nobles by their clothes.

Arken waved over a passing boy, apparently some apprentice to one of the performers since the guards appeared not to bother noticing him as he jogged along on some errand or other. He came at the summons and bowed.

"My lord?" He asked with a bow low enough for his long hair to nearly touch the ground.

She looked from the boy to Arken and really noticed how his illusion looked for the first time. She hadn't even bothered paying attention to it much once she'd locked into his eyes. After that they were all she'd noticed. Now she gathered him in. He wore black britches and boots both with ornate silver buckles, and a fine silk shirt of pale cream, not white, that was embroidered with fine patterns in thread that was pure white, just enough difference so that a fine eye could pick out the quality.

Arken flipped the boy a silver scale, probably more money than he'd ever had at one time in his whole life, and smiled warmly. "Please if you would send one of the porters to our table. I know that your master may be displeased," he flipped another scale to the boy. "but perhaps he will overlook the delay."

The boy grinned and bowed, backing away clutching a silver scale in each tight fist. When he felt he had shown enough deference he turned and sprinted off towards one of the tents set up around the edge of the pavilion where Tilly could see teams of cooks and others preparing foods in a variety and number that simply boggled the mind.

"You'll never pass for a noble lady goggling like that." Arken said in a laughing whisper.

Tilly tried to scowl at him, but she couldn't manage to take her eyes off all the performers in their brightly colored clothes and practicing their often strange acts even while servers and cooks bustled back and forth across the circle of the pavilion avoiding only the innermost ring where the brazier stood.

He laughed aloud this time, throwing his head back and giving a good natured guffaw.

She managed to tear her attention away from a bard juggling knives in a circle so fast that they became almost a solid blur before him long enough to stick her tongue out at him. It just made him laugh louder.

The laugher drew the attention of a small group who'd just entered the pavilion, passing the guard who'd moved to stop them something that glittered as it changed hands. Most frowned and continued on, but one man, barely old enough to have earned that title, stopped and looked at them curiously. His pause drew Tilly's eye and she looked him over, as interested in the strange folk in this place as the performers.

He wore a long two tailed coat of blue belted over a pair of tight blue trousers, but it was the great top hat that really drew her attention. It rose from his head like a chimney. He was tall and lanky, his height shooting up disproportionately to his girth like most boys his age, but unlike most he moved with a supple grace that didn't make him seem coltish at all. The lacquered black cane he carried appeared more an affectation than anything really useful.

He approached their table, letting the others of his group continue on to a place they had chosen almost exactly opposite, bobbing his head forward and touching two fingers to the brim of his hat. "My lord, my lady;" he said in greeting. "I believed I had met all the noble cousins, but I do not recognize you. May I ask to whom you belong?"

Arken stood slowly and inclined his head slightly to the man. "I am Samuel Arken of the Sixth house of Tal'Ram in the east, and this is my traveling companion the Lady Tilly of Wrenwatch Hold. We are not of the noble cousins of this land and so belong only to ourselves."

The man smiled. "Ah, travelers, and from far by your speech." He motioned towards a chair nearby and waited for Arken to nod before drawing it closer and sitting. "I have never heard of Tal'Ram or Wrenwatch, but I forget myself," he chuckled for a moment before continuing. "I am Jurva of the second cousins in Nalweir."

Arken smiled as if this meant something to him, though Tilly was completely lost. The only thing they'd said to each other she'd really understood had been when Arken mentioned Wrenwatch Hold, which was where she'd been born and raised to be the Lamb, though she was surprised to find that Arken knew its name.

"I would say that I am surprised that two of your years would be found so far from home, but somehow I expect I would be mistaken in that." Jurva said, the corner of his lips twisting up in a half smile as he looked them over.

Arken nodded but remained silent. He knew how this game was often played. He had seen it years uncounted in almost every kingdom he'd known. He called it the game of crowns, but it wasn't just for those near enough to grab a crown. Even the lowest born nobles played, and it was always the goal to find some toehold on power. The man might just be interested in two strangers, younger than most, and come to talk, perhaps to hear of far off lands, but then he might have seen two younglings and hoped they might be worth ransom or more. It didn't worry him overmuch, he could deal with any danger any human posed to them.

Jurva laughed. "My lady, you stare at me as if I were a lion with ducks feet." He said with a wink to her. "I assure you that I am not so strange as all that."

Tilly realized that she had been staring. Taking in all of him, so unlike the people she had known in the hold, the reserved and common sisters and other girls who'd been sent to train, was almost overwhelming. He was so wrapped in stiff backed propriety that it actually came out of his mouth when he talked, yet his words were kind and lighthearted, almost a counterpoint to his posture and bearing. She wondered if all nobles were like him. She thought not. She couldn't imagine the man she'd had stripped of title and land with his sharp eyes and haughty bearing speaking a kind word to anyone, though she realized now how easily she could have misjudged him. Perhaps she had done an injustice that day. The thought made her blush deeper than before.

Jurva smiled at seeing the blush creep down her cheeks. "I assume you came for the festival?" He asked.

Tilly glanced at Arken, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Not exactly," Tilly said, "We just sort of found ourselves here at just the right moment and decided to stop in and see the fair."

"Fair!" Jurva exclaimed. "Oh it's so much more than just a fair."

Just then a man with greying hair and bushy eyebrows, which seemed to take up a good quarter of his face, approached wearing a simple but well-made coat of yellow and matching trousers. He bowed and waited, as if he would stand there all day without speaking until he was noticed.

"Ah a porter, good." Jurva said, as if the man had appeared just for him. "Bring us wine and duck. Have you ever had duck?" He asked, looking at Tilly.

She shook her head. She'd rarely had anything better than what the sisters ate, which was common fare, though she'd had pheasant for her final meal in the hold.

"Bring milk and cheese as well," Arven added. "The lady has never tasted strong wine and she may wish to mix it with milk to begin."

The porter nodded and bowed away.

"Ah now what was I saying," Jurva said, sitting back again. "Oh yes. This isn't just a fair. It is a real festival. The festival of Ribbons some call it, though that is the common name. It is actually an ancient festival to celebrate midsummer and the turning of the year, though in these days that is celebrated in the spring. Really it is the festival of Norn, to celebrate the end of the war with the stone giants and the defeat of the giant king Norn the Slaughterer, though that was nearly four hundred years ago and few have even read the histories of it."

"Are you a scholar then?" Arken asked.

Jurva shook his head. "I enjoy reading histories, though mostly for the recollection of battles and such, but I wouldn't call myself a scholar by any means."

Just then the porter returned with a large tray piled with food and drink. There were two roasted birds, something like chickens but larger, and two large glass pitchers, one with milk, one with some nearly opaque red liquid that must be the wine, both beaded with condensation, and a half round of dark yellow cheese.

The conversation stopped for a time. They ate and drank with only a few brief words, though Jurva did pause long enough to chuckle when Tilly took her first sip of undiluted wine and nearly choked. It was heavily spiced but potent. Arken gave Jurva a slightly unfriendly look at his laugh as he mixed a much smaller amount of the wine with milk and returned the glass to her. He drank it full strength, as did Jurva. She found the mixture more palatable, and a fair compliment to the crispy skinned duck, which tasted wonderfully of the dried herbs rubbed into its skin, which dripped juice when it was punctured.

When the meal was done Tilly realized that the sun had gone, though there was still a lot of light because many paper lanterns strung on cords running around and towards the center of the pavilion had been lit. She had been so interested in the fabulous food that she had failed to notice the men moving around and doing the lighting.

"Ah just in time." Jurva said, turning towards the center of the pavilion.

Tilly turned to look as well and saw that a group of men dressed in blue robes belted with long gold braided ropes and ribbons streaming in their hair interspersed with beads and bells, were gathering in a ring around the as yet unlit brazier at the center of the pavilion. The blue stones glittered with reflected light from the lanterns and she wondered for a moment if they were gems or some other type of precious stone.

Then the men began to dance.

The bells in their hair tinkled against the beads, musical, and in harmony, providing their own subtle music as they danced in moving and flowing patterns. They moved in three rings, each widening out from the one closest to the brazier. The outer ring had the most dancers, eight men, moving slowly step by step, spin and twist, in a circle to the left. The second ring moved to the right and had four men moving faster. They not only spun and twisted but also rolled and jumped. The innermost ring had only two dancers, but these were the most interesting. They moved like the wind, their feet and arms blurred from the speed of their dancing, and they danced in opposing directions, one moving right the other left around the brazier. They didn't seem to deviate at all from their circle, each staying the exact same distance from the center brazier, but yet they managed not to fall in a tangle of limbs as they passed one another, a feat she'd have thought impossible.

Suddenly she realized that the music was no longer just the bells in the dangers hair ringing as they moved. Now many of the performers had joined in. Drums pounded a steady rhythm, a primal sound like the beating of many great hearts. Pipes and flutes accompanied them with flutters and trills, and violins took up the wildness of the dance, a somehow mournful sound.

Nobody approached the brazier, yet it suddenly burst into flame, a huge column of yellow and blue rising smokeless into the night. Tilly jumped slightly at the suddenness of it, and blinked back tears as her eyes were stung by the sudden light, yet she didn't take her eyes off it. She was entranced.

Had she realized it, she was the only one at the table watching the fabulous show. Arken was watching her, his eyes fixed on her wondering face and a smile spread on his lips, and Jurva was watching them both with his own mysterious smile.

The blaze died down to a solid blue glow. The blue stones each seemed to be afire within the brazier, and the dancers had somehow increased their speed, no longer just circling but some moving into an inner ring while others moved out to fill the places that they left. The glow didn't seem to decrease, but it seemed to collapse in, as if the blue stones were beginning to burn from the inside out, the glow receding into their depths.

Just when she thought the glow would dissipate completely, the lights appeared. Cords of light in every color imaginable began to sprout from the stones. Thousands of stones each with many cords that quickly widened into ribbons and spread upward and outward spreading and dancing with the music and the bell and the beating hearts of the drums.

Tilly was on her feet without realizing she meant to rise. She saw others had done the same and were dancing into the center of the pavilion. Women joined the men in their circle, pairing off with them and spreading the circles wider and wider. The ribbons of light had grown out from the brazier and some already touched the lights hanging directly above. The flames, which had all been a normal yellow, now glowed with the color of the ribbon that had touched them. As she watched more ribbons touched more lanterns and the flames changed their colors to green, blue, orange, and many others.

The two men who had been dancing closest to the brazier had stopped and were holding their arms up, each having been touched by the spreading ribbons of colored light. They glowed with a nimbus of colored light around them, though they were not burned only exultant.

"It's never been like this." Jurva whispered. He had also risen from his seat, but he was looking perhaps even more shocked than her, and she realized he wasn't the only one who looked that way at the sight. Many of the performers and some of the revelers were also looking on, stunned by the ribbons of light that still spread further, touching more dancers and outlining them in brilliant colors.

Despite the shocked look on his face, he was as entranced as everyone else. He'd already taken several unconscious steps towards the center of the pavilion.

"What do you mean?" Arken asked. His voice had taken on a deep rumble, though he still appeared the same, a beautiful young boy with green eyes that could entrance, capture, hold.

This time when Jurva replied his voice was hazy, almost distant, as if he were speaking back to them from a distant hill, shouting to be heard but barely audible, though his voice wasn't actually hard to hear or make out.

"The ribbons burn and dance above the brazier and the dragon stones but they have never danced with us like this." He replied, though he seemed disinterested now, no longer shocked. A woman danced in from his side and swept him up and towards the other dancers, many of whom had been connected to the brazier, and each other now it seemed, by the ribbons of light.

Here a man outlined in yellow met a woman with a blue nimbus. There two women outlined in white and gold twirled each other around in circles holding hands and spinning with their heads back and their mouths open in delighted laughter.

She was swept up in the dance and she didn't mind in the least. She spun and laughed among the people not caring that here she spun around a grey haired man with wrinkled hands and delighted eyes and there she danced with the two women wrapped in gold and white joining their spinning for a time. She found that she was wrapped in light now too, but she didn't have just one ribbon like the others, she had ten or more, so many that she could not make out their colors as they wrapped and wove around her.

He was there. She knew he had been trying to push his way through the thick of the dancer, dodging and moving, always one step behind her. A merry chase she had led him, but now she turned even as his hand, no not a hand, a paw, the fingers thick and gentle, filled with such strength that tearing apart her human flesh would have been less than a thought. She thrust her light into him, around him, even as she wrapped her arms of flesh around him. She pressed her lips to his mouth and felt his sharp teeth cut into her lips drawing blood. She didn't mind. There was life and energy in blood and she fed from his kiss as surely as he fed from her blood.

Arken hadn't been enraptured by the lights, but he was by Tilly. She had darted away before he could catch her, something that should have been impossible. She moved like a dragoness, dodging him each time he came near to catch her. It was a game, a hunt. He would pursue and she would evade until she felt he had proven himself worthy. It had been centuries since he had played it. As she moved through the dancers she picked up ribbons of light, ten, then twenty, then more until he could not count them.

When she stopped he almost didn't he was so close behind her. She turned before his hand could grab and suddenly she was against him, inside him, her lights, all those gathered ribbons were penetrating him. Her blood was in his mouth and she was drawing him in. From somewhere deep inside him he felt a bit of his being slip free and flow between their lips, mixing with her blood, then escaping into her.

Her hands were under his shirt and his paws had slipped up her legs to her butt, raising her skirt to her waist. He could feel the fabric of her smallclothes between their skin and he wanted to tear it free with his teeth. He could feel himself losing his hold on the human form, but he wasn't sure he cared at that moment.

It was Tilly that broke the contact. She was suddenly stronger than him. He'd never felt weak in the knees before, but he did now as she pushed him away lightly, easily. Her eyes were wide as she looked over his shoulder.

Tilly came back to herself as Arken clutched her to him, his body shivering against her. She could feel his weakness and that seemed right, though she thought it should be wrong, that she wanted strength and power not weakness. It was that moment that she saw the changes.

The lights now sprung out from her and Arken, no longer only from the brazier. The dancers and revelers had torn away clothing and were writhing together naked and sweating with their exertions as they coupled on the ground. They were not all human anymore. Here a doe bleated as she was coupled by a stag with a magnificent rack of antlers, his head thrown back in ecstasy even as white seed spilled between them and ran down the back of the doe's thighs. There a great black stallion, his erection magnificent and throbbing, attempted to mount a woman who was half changed to a mare, her tail flung up and to the side but her butt and back legs still human, thrust up trying to meet the stallions thrusts that slid between her human legs and against her belly, which was already turning white with fur.

A pair of hares no smaller than the humans they had once been were lost in carnal embrace just to their left. She squealed as he pumped frantically in and out of her, his paws wrapped around her middle and his teeth gently biting her neck from behind. They were all changing, though some were further along than others.

Not all of the people were turning into completely natural creatures either. A couple had burst with scales and wings, falling to four hooved feet. They weren't dragons, but they weren't far off from it either. They coupled with abandon among the other bodies.

She saw Jurva then. He wasn't as far along in being changed as some of the others. His top hat had fallen off and his trousers were gone, though he still wore his tailed coat, which was now joined by a tail of his own, a long white tail that swished and flicked as he prepared to enter the woman beneath him, his manhood hard and slick looking, not a human's at all. His eyes had gone different colors and his hair was white. His teeth were half still normal, though several around his canines had grown slightly longer and pointed. Pointed ears had grown from his head and stuck up through his hair.

She pulled back in horror and ran. Arken let her go, he couldn't have held her, he felt too weak, though he somehow found the strength to give chase once again, knowing that he must catch her and claim her once more.

She ran for the doors.