82. Helena #4
She opened her eyes to see that the scale had barely budged. She pulled again, using all of her might. The scale loosened slightly.
“Bertram? Could you—could you help?” Helena asked.
“Yup.”
She knew that Bertram didn’t love this particular medical procedure, but it was with no hesitation that Bertram took the pliers from Helena and yanked with enough force that the dragon’s scale popped out. Immediately the cyst began oozing puss.
“Diana, bandage, please!” Helena called.
Diana handed her a bandage, which Helena pressed to the open part of Leroix’s wound. There was a faint hissing noise. Helena felt her hand start to warm and realized the hissing was coming from the bandage, which was rapidly dissolving.
“Oh, SHIT!” Helena jumped back. “Update: Dragon puss is at least somewhat corrosive against foreign objects.”
“Some foreign objects,” Bertram corrected. “Pliers seem to be fine.”
“Metal, then.” Diana nodded. “We need metal.”
She rooted around in her delivery crate and found a metal bucket, which she placed by Leroix’s side in front of Helena.
“Thank you,” Helena said. She let out an unsteady breath and began cleaning out the contents of the cyst, making sure to scrape the puss into the bucket without letting it touch herself or her companions.
Lovey seemed to understand the stakes and stayed far away from their delicate cyst-extracting operation.
Instead, Lovey amused herself by going from sleeping dragon to sleeping dragon, sniffing at their unmoving forms. Every once in a while she nudged one with a beak or poked one with a talon, but Diana’s sleep spell held true.
Helena had to widen the incision after her initial cut to make sure that every last bit of infectious cyst material had been thoroughly exorcised from the dragon’s wound.
Then she washed it out with the saline solution Bertram passed her and finally closed the wound using the dragon-strength needle and thread.
With every tool she switched to, Helena sent silent thanks into the universe for the Midsummer Knights Dragon Protection Society’s dedication to excellence in dragon veterinary care, Syr Hippolyta for being so generous with her resources, and Dr. J for knowing and introducing Helena to Syr Hippolyta in the first place.
Dragon skin, she found, was even more difficult to sew through than owl-bear skin, but she managed. It was slow, laborious. But when Helena finished, Leroix’s wound was closed with neat, even stitches.
Helena stepped back, panting. “There.”
“Are you done?” Bertram asked.
“Yeah. I think I am.”
“Think or sure?” Diana asked. “Because I don’t think we want to do the whole sleeping-and-waking thing twice.”
Helena took a deep breath and stared intensely at Leroix’s closed wound, as if somehow if she looked long enough she would get a sense of his prospects for recovery.
“I’m sure,” Helena said, with as much confidence as she could muster.
She stood and followed standard biohazard disposal procedure by throwing the bucket of dragon puss into a pocket of bubbling lava in the back corner of the cave, as anyone would in any normal hospital.
Diana grabbed a different flower from her bag—purple and white striped—and knelt down beside Leroix. She crushed the juice of the flower into his closed eye and spoke softly:
“Wyrm, you have but slumbered here
Whilst your cure drew ever near.
And may your ills no longer seem
Like naught but this: an idle dream.
Now to wake the serpents’ tongue
And we will make amends ere long.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
All may rise with hard-earned luck.”
Diana snapped her fingers.
Leroix’s massive golden eyes blinked awake, and he lumbered to his feet. All around him, dragons rose, shaking their heads and looking around as they came to.
Leroix stood somewhat unsteadily, shaking off the remains of his magically induced slumber. He shifted his head from side to side and swayed his neck, as though testing his form.
“Well,” Helena said, “you’re not dead.”
“Not yet, no.” Leroix stretched his wings, turned his neck. “And therefore, neither are you, little humans.”
“Fairy,” said Diana.
“Orc-vampire,” said Bertram.
“Mostly human,” muttered Helena.
“As for my wound, I regret that I cannot see it myself, but I admit that I feel . . . lighter.” Leroix turned to face his court. “What do you think, my trusted ones? Does it look as though I am healed?”
Helena held her breath as two medium-sized dragons approached, one a yellow so bright it nearly blinded her, the other a mix of black, white, and red.
Bertram elbowed Helena in the ribs. Helena looked at him quizzically.
Bertram gestured frantically with a jerk of his head and a raise of his eyebrows. Helena shrugged, still unsure of his meaning.
Bertram took Helena’s face gently in his hands and turned it directly toward the approaching black-and-white dragon.
The black-and-white dragon, with red markings.
Unlike Leroix, there was no red on this new dragon’s face, only on his occipital ridge.
This dragon had a white stripe down his long neck, much like Leroix’s, but the area behind his bright snout was entirely black, with no white stripes whatsoever.
His markings were quite similar to Leroix’s, but different enough to prove that he was—
“An ivory-snouted dragon.“ Helena’s voice was so breathless with excitement that it was barely audible. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, it’s an ivory-snouted dragon.”
“Now if the ivory-snouted dragon says we’re allowed to live and go home, that will be a real miracle,“ Bertram added.
The draconic advisers hissed and clicked, then stepped back, inclining their necks to Leroix in a gesture reminiscent of a bow.
“My trusted ones say that the wound looks to have been excavated of its disease, and properly sealed. I suppose I owe you my thanks, little human doctor. I have no proof that this has saved my life . . .”
Helena tensed, panicked, but Leroix was not finished.
“But no such proof could manifest on the spot, I know. I will one day die, of course, and it seems that you have done your sincere best to prolong the moments until that day. I may not know the hour of my demise, but it would feel unfair to consider your duty anything less than fulfilled. You are free to leave, and time will see what fate has in store for Leroix.”
“Thank you,” Helena said. “I’ll come back for a re-check in three days, and then a week or two after, depending.”
Leroix blinked, uncomprehending. “What?”
“Post-op care. I’ll come check the healing progress, make sure the original infection is kept in line and there’s no secondary infection from the somewhat impromptu treatment. I can also take pictures and send them to Hippolyta for a second opinion, if we want a real draconologist.”
Again, Leroix blinked. “You would . . . come back . . . for me?”
“Of course.”
“Even though I threatened to kill you?”
“I came to the Folio Mountains to help otherfolk,” Helena said. “Taking care of your wounds qualifies. It would be my honor to continue treating you, Your Majesty.”
“Then I will accept your care.” Leroix’s tail swished back and forth. “And I give you this man in marriage. May your days be long and happy.”
Helena and Bertram exchanged looks.
“Thank you,” Helena said. “That’s, uh, very kind of you.”
“It was . . . decent of you to save my life, as well.” Leroix inclined his head the slightest bit.
“If you tell anyone of this horde, I will know, I will find you, and I will burn you to crisp. If you bring humans into the Folio Mountains to chip away at the ground, to tear down our trees, to desecrate our rivers, the same.”
“It is very much my goal to stop that from happening,” said Helena.
“Then you may leave now with your husband.” Leroix turned to Diana. “And Goodfellow . . . try not to make too much of a mess of your life, or someone else’s.”
“Someone else’s?“ Diana smirked. “Oh, please. When I fuck up, I don’t mess up someone’s life; I mess up everyone’s life.”
Diana blew Leroix a kiss, then exited the cave, Bertram and Helena following close behind.
“Wait!” Leroix called. “Puny human!”
Helena stopped and turned. “Yes?”
“I will grant you one more favor.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do anything else for me,” Helena said, half-worried that Leroix was now going to insist she marry Diana as well.
“Dragons live a long, long time, and as such our seasons of breeding are few and far between. It has been an age and a half since an egg was hatched in my court. And I . . .”
Helena waited as Leroix struggled to find words.
“I . . . did not mind the presence of the youngling,“ Leroix said, begrudgingly.
“Perhaps she was less annoying than she originally seemed. If you wanted the Little Beastie to have a mentor with true wings—not the pathetic insect wings of Goodfellow—who could teach her to fly as befitting her kin . . . I suppose I could deign to teach her.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Helena smiled. “I’m sure she would be very excited.”
“Yes, and I suppose I would find her company tolerable.” Leroix nodded.
“Then I guess it will be good for all of us that we’re staying in the Folios,” Helena said.
“I suppose it is,” Leroix conceded. “Though I never thought I would say such things about a human.”
“Mostly human,” Helena mumbled as she slipped out the cave exit.