50. Aurora
AURORA
Over the next few days, it became apparent that my little golden drakeling was somehow projecting her emotions to more than just me.
She was always hungry for one thing—which meant that I was always hungry too—and so was Ryse. The hunger even spread to M’alex, who, he told me, was demanding two or three extra sheep and goats every time he ate.
The people who were closest to me were extra hungry as well, but I couldn’t tell if that had anything to do with L’eesha or if it was just because they had all bonded with dragons too.
Bugs had bonded a common Blue and Toady had gotten a common Green. Leaper had gotten a Bronze-wing, just like his father, and Jorn-o—to his surprise and delight—had bonded with a Silver-wing.
All of them had apologized to me for not believing about L’eesha and I had forgiven them. I needed my friends and I was happy to be on good terms with them again.
“I shouldn’t have said you weren’t telling the truth, Auri,” Jorn-o told me, as we sat together at lunch. “Your L’eesha might be small, but she’s special,” he added. “My S’allar says she talked to him from her egg and told him to hurry up and hatch.”
“My K’ebreth said the same thing!” Leaper exclaimed.
Bugs and Toady nodded in unison and Jorn-o laughed.
“It sounds like your little Gold has been bossing all our drakelings around before any of them were even hatched,” he remarked. “I’ve never heard of that happening before!”
“She’s bossy, all right,” I said, unable to hide my pride. My bossy little drakeling was presently in the Nursery Cavern but I had promised to come see her as soon as I finished lunch.
Thank goodness classes had been suspended for the First-years for the next six weeks. Our drakelings were growing rapidly and they needed a lot of feeding, bathing, and attention, which we wouldn’t have been able to give them otherwise.
It seemed that I spent all my time with my new golden baby, who—in the space of just a few days—had already tripled in size. But I couldn’t have been happier. I was completely head-over-heels in love with her, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
For the next few weeks, I was completely immersed in her. If I wasn’t at the Nursery Cavern, I was taking her to the Dragon Baths, which were so big they made the Cook-pot look like a puddle.
I made sure to stay in the shallows when I scrubbed her golden hide with the foaming bath-sand and rinsed her clean. She was always complaining of being itchy—unsurprising considering how fast she was growing and shedding her skin.
Often M’alex and Ryse would come with us to the Baths. It was something to see—the huge Midnight Gold-wing lounging in the water which barely came up to his foreleg while the tiny golden Queen paddled around him and climbed all over him.
M’alex was invariably gentle and patient with my bossy little Golden Gold-wing—if that was the right classification. Most people—myself included—just called her a “Pure Gold” since she really was pure gold from muzzle to tail tip.
“i want to go out further,” she protested one day, when M’alex and Ryse were swimming in a deeper section of the Baths where I didn’t dare to follow.
“No, you can’t,” I told her sternly. “You can’t swim—you’re a dragon, not a fish.”
“yes, i can!” she protested, and dived underwater before popping up to swim around me in a circle to prove her point.
“All right, maybe you can swim,” I admitted grudgingly. “But I can’t. And I don’t want you getting too close to the bigger dragons except for M’alex. He doesn’t mind putting up with you—I don’t know about the rest.”
“they all know i am the Queen,” was her instant reply. “they will not mind if I swim with them. And you can hold on to me, my Auri—i will keep you safe. Here—hold on to my spines!”
She projected her wish to swim out so hard that I really had a difficult time fighting against it. It was very strange to feel myself longing to go out into deep water that the logical part of me considered dangerous since I couldn’t swim.
“How about a compromise?” I asked at last. “We’ll go out a little way, but you have to turn back when I tell you to.”
L’eesha was agreeable to that, so I grabbed onto her tallest dorsal spine and let her tow me out deeper into the vast pool of steaming water.
As my feet left the sandy bottom of the indoor lake, I felt my heartbeat pick up. I had always been afraid of deep water and the idea of it going over my head wasn’t pleasant. But I had a good grip on her dorsal spine, and she really was quite a strong swimmer.
She was about the size of a small horse now, so I didn’t worry about her not being strong enough to tow me.
And every day she was growing bigger and stronger.
She’d eaten a whole goat on her own just that morning and, though it had been a small one, she’d finished it all from the horns to the hooves.
I had worried about her eating the bones and hooves and horns, but Ryse had explained to me that the bubbling pool of lava every dragon had in its gut was more than a match for such items, which would have been wholly indigestible to a human.
I was distracted with my thoughts and before I knew it, we were much further out than I wanted to be. Looking down, I could see that the rocky bottom of the pool was far below us.
“L’eesha, that’s enough now,” I told her. “Let’s go back to the shallows and I’ll scrub you again.”
“don’t want to,” was her stubborn reply. “don’t—”
But just at that moment, an enormous Emerald Gold-wing, which had been floating, half-submerged on its back a few yards away, yawned and turned over, which caused a mini-tidal wave.
The wave rushed over me and both L’eesha and I lost my grip on her dorsal fin. With a cry, I was swept away from her, out into the deeper end of the pool…
And then the water closed over my head.