9. Celia
Chapter nine
Celia
It had been nearly ten days since Celia had sobbed all over Darian, and she was doing a wonderful job of trying to forget it had ever happened.
Well, perhaps not a wonderful job. She couldn’t forget it.
More specifically, she couldn’t forget how delightful it had felt when he held her in his arms, and she’d felt safe and whole again for the first time since she had lost her first love.
“He’s not coming,” Celia told the dragons, who were chittering and complaining, probably because Darian hadn’t arrived yet.
He’d come out every day since then, riding their horse, who seemed to be enjoying the exercise more and more every day, but he’d told her yesterday that the horse would be needed for the store today.
“So Darian isn’t coming,” she finished explaining.
All four of them squawked at her. If only she could understand what they were saying. She’d never wished more that she had Darian’s talent. Try as she might, she was never able to discern any difference in the chirping and the squawking, no matter how many times he translated.
She sighed and got to her feet, picking up her empty bowl and taking it over to wash it.
“I think you four should skedaddle outside,” she said.
They were nearly healed. Spark could walk normally, Sizzle’s wing had healed, and even Flame was beginning to fly well. They would leave for the mountains soon, and she tried to ignore how crushed she felt at the thought.
She didn’t want to see them go.
She glanced at Sod as he waddled out the door using both back legs normally. Even Sod seemed better. If it wasn’t for Darian, she imagined he would have left by now, but the squat little earth dragon seemed rather attached to Darian, just as much as the fire dragons were attached to her.
She fought back tears at the thought of them leaving as she washed her breakfast bowl.
They did not belong here. They belonged in the Gloaming Mountains.
She began to prepare her bag and a basket. There was a nest that looked as if it might hatch today. Probably air dragons, if she had to guess, based on the air holes that had developed in the nest—air dragon eggs seemed to need more oxygen than the others.
The late winter air had grown warm enough that there would likely be fewer babies that needed her assistance, but it was still possible, so she wanted to go visit them.
“I don’t suppose you’re all coming with me?” she said, as the dragons walked underfoot as she made her way out the door. But then they began squawking and chittering for another reason, and she looked up to see Darian making his way toward her, an easy smile on his face.
“I…thought you weren’t coming,” she said, as the dragons all flew toward him, screeching their delight.
“I thought so too,” he said, “but my uncles informed me that I was not needed, and if I wanted to walk out, I could.”
“I see,” Celia said, her ears and cheeks feeling flushed. He’d walked all the way out just to see her. “You didn’t need to do that.”
“I thought you said we had a nest today,” he pointed out. “I didn’t want you to have to do all the digging by yourself.”
She smiled. He’d remembered. “Thank you.”
He reached behind his shoulders, and she noticed that he was wearing a knapsack.
“I brought a small shovel to help, so we don’t have to use our hands as much.”
Her eyes widened at the two brand-new shovels he pulled out.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, letting him take the lead as they began walking toward the nests.
“I’m allowed to take whatever I need for work,” he said. “And this is a need.”
“This is a want,” she corrected him. “We can use our hands just as well.”
He shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of needs,” he said. “This counts. Besides, my uncles are practically in love with you, and if I said it was for you, they’d be even more willing for me to bring them.”
Celia sighed. She had brought breakfast over once more since the first time, and if anything, it had only increased his uncles’ quest for her to fall in love with him. She didn’t mind, though.
As much as he annoyed her sometimes, she had to admit that Darian was useful, and having him around was nicer than being alone, at least.
“Let me give you some money for it,” she said.
“You don’t need to. I’m sure you have limited resources.”
Celia frowned and stopped walking, putting her hands on her hips. “Are you helping me out of pity?”
“What? No,” he said, stopping and taking a step closer to her. “Don’t be silly. I just don’t know where you would get more money. But I’m not helping you out of any pity. I’m helping you because I want to.”
This close, she had to tilt her head back to look at him.
“I’ll have you know that the dragons pay me.”
Darian laughed, but his laughter faded away as he took in the look on her face. “You’re serious?” he asked.
“Every few months, there’s a pile of coins left somewhere on my property,” she said. “Since I rarely see anyone but dragons, I can only imagine that it’s the dragons repaying me from their hoard.”
“Dragon hoards are real?” Darian asked in disbelief.
“I guess,” she said with a shrug. Since neither of them actually knew anything about dragon lore except for the childhood stories they’d been told, his guess was as good as hers.
“I can’t imagine anyone else sneaking out here to give me more than a month’s wages at a time.
I have more stored under my bed than I could use in the next three years.
I’m saving it to find a good cause for it, I just haven’t figured out what that is yet. Do you need to see it to believe me?”
“I believe you,” he said, reaching out to snag her hand and pull her into a walk again. “Come on, let’s go deal with that nest.”
He led the way toward the nesting grounds without letting go of her hand, and Celia smiled at his back.
Where other men might have insisted on seeing the pile of gold or demanded that she pay for shovels after finding out she had the means, Darian simply believed her, and that meant more than he knew.
They made their way to the nesting grounds in a comfortable silence, the grounding presence of his hand holding hers in a different kind of communication.
Since they’d met each other, he spoke less and she spoke more. The times that they were quiet, the silence was like a warm blanket. She didn’t worry that he was silent because he felt he needed to for her sake or worry that her silence was confusing him. She just felt understood.
She felt safe.
When they reached the nesting grounds, their four baby dragons following behind them, Celia knelt next to Darian at the edge of the air dragon nest and grinned as a baby air dragon’s nose popped through the dirt.
“We made it just in time,” she said, a thrill shooting through her.
The white dragon dug through and began preening its wings on the edge of the nest, while the other dragons began chittering at it.
“What are they telling him?” she asked Darian, who was watching the conversation with a grin.
“They’re telling him that if he has any injuries, you will help him, and if he wants to stay with us, life is wonderful here. And he said no, he’s going to the mountains. He just has to get all the dirt off his wings first,” Darian interpreted as the dragon continued to preen its wings.
Another baby dragon poked through, followed by two more noses on either side.
“They’re in a hurry,” Celia said.
“Good,” Darian grunted, settling down to watch.
Celia sat down next to him, her pinky finger brushing against his on the ground.
He shifted slightly closer, so she did the same, and before she knew it, she was leaning against him as they watched their babies frolic and play and talk to the new babies.
In less than an hour, the nest had hatched nearly twenty baby air dragons.
Celia wished it could last longer.
She’d never felt so relaxed.
“How are we not overrun by dragons?” Darian asked, watching the light glint off all the little white and gray and light blue bodies scattered around them, all busily cleaning their wings. “How are there not so many of them that people know they exist?”
“I don’t know,” Celia said with a halfhearted shrug.
“I don’t know what the survival rate is, or how far the Gloaming Mountains stretch, or how old they grow.
All I know is we get one to three nests per dragon type every year, and this was the only air dragon nest I saw this year, so perhaps not all of them will make it to adulthood. ”
After waiting a little longer to make sure there were no stragglers, Darian and Celia began digging into the nest.
“Are you sure we can use these shovels?” Celia said, looking at the small hand shovel he gave her.
“I’m sure,” he said.
“And you don’t think it would hurt a baby dragon if there’s one?” she asked.
“We could just use them for the top layer,” he said, “and stop once we hit the eggs, but I don’t think it will hurt them. Can you come here please, Spark?” he called.
Spark hopped over obligingly, and Darian carefully tapped the edge of the shovel against his scales. Spark squawked, but not in pain.
“See,” he said. “He told me to hit him harder.”
Celia laughed and began using the hand shovel to dig away the dirt. Darian was right. It did make it easier.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, with a warm smile in her direction that said he truly meant it.
With the help of the shovels, they reached the bottom faster than ever, and amidst the ruins of the eggs, there were no babies.
“That’s an easy one,” she said, sitting back on her heels with a smile. “They’re almost ready to take off.”
Air dragons always flew to the mountains, unlike the earth dragons, who always walked.
She glanced down toward the creek, where there was a water dragon nest in the mud, and sighed.
“Only the water dragons left,” she said. “They’re my least favorite.”
“Why?” Darian asked, following her gaze to look at the nest.
“It’s the hardest to dig to the eggs,” she said. “They build their nest close to water. I suppose the dragon eggs want to be moist, but getting to the bottom is difficult.”
“It’s a good thing you have a shovel now,” he said with an easy grin, holding out his hand for it and stowing it back into the knapsack.
The air hatchlings took off in a flurry of wings and chirps, and when the dust cleared, Celia opened her eyes to see one new hatchling still on the ground, surrounded by their fire and earth hatchlings.
“Uh-oh,” she said as she hurried forward.
The baby was chirping pitifully, and Darian reached it first.
“I’m sorry it hurts,” he said soothingly. “We’ll help you. What hurts?”
The baby dragon answered and Darian turned to Celia. “It’s her wing.”
She looked up at Celia with pain and fear as Darian ran his finger gently down the side of her neck, whispering soothingly.
No matter how many nests she helped, Celia always forgot just how tiny they were until she was holding a newly hatched baby.
It was even more difficult now that she had the oldest dragons she’d ever had following her around now. Even Sod was larger than most dogs at this point, though he was shorter and more squat than the fire dragons, who were more sleek and graceful.
The air dragon let out a pain-laced trill as Celia gently opened her wing, and there it was, near the top where it was harder to bend—a large slit probably torn by a sibling’s clawed back feet as they climbed their way out of the dirt.
“Let me take you home,” she said soothingly.
“We can bandage this. There’s an ointment I want to put on before we do.
” She should have grabbed it and put it in her bag, but she’d taken it out to rub on Flame’s wing last night and had forgotten to put it back.
“It’s sitting on my table,” she said with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have left it.”
“It’s okay,” Darian said, offering her a smile. “She would have come back with us anyway. We will help you,” he told the baby, who turned her gaze on him with distrust.
Air dragons were the least likely to bond with her. She thought perhaps it was something about the freedom they usually enjoyed, and this one seemed to be no different.
“Let’s go, Breeze,” Darian said, scooping her up and placing her in the basket, taking it from Celia before she could protest.
“I could carry the basket,” Celia said. “I’m perfectly capable, and you’re already carrying the knapsack.”
“Just because you’re capable doesn’t mean you have to,” Darian said, the words so matter-of-fact, as if he didn’t realize what he was saying.
Celia wasn’t used to being told that.
She’d always had to do everything herself, except for the brief time she’d been betrothed, and that hadn’t lasted long enough to get used to it.
“Let’s get her home and take care of her, and then I’ll let you take care of me by making us food. Does that sound like a deal?”
Celia laughed.
“I brought food,” he added, shrugging his shoulder where the knapsack’s strap rested. “I just need your help to make it taste better than I could.”
“I’m going to have to teach you how to cook. You know that, right?” she asked as she began walking home.
Darian followed. “I’m sure my uncles would thank you for the rest of their lives.”
“I’m sure they would,” she teased, “but on second thought, perhaps the three of you deserve to live with your miserable cooking. They certainly don’t care.”
“Oh, they do,” he assured her as the fire dragons flew ahead. “They just care more about other things.”
“And right now, they’ll take any excuse to send you toward me,” she quipped.
Darian didn’t respond, and Celia glanced at him. Why was he not responding? Had she hit a nerve?
“You know I don’t mind, right?” she asked.
He looked at her, his normal smile gone.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “I think that sometimes I’m a little much for you, and I know that my uncles definitely are.”
Celia reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I don’t mind,” she said. “In fact, you make up for it by carrying all of the heavy things for me.”
He grinned, and her heart felt lighter just seeing it.
“Oh, good,” he said. “As long as you need me for a pack mule, you’ll keep me around, right?”
Celia smiled. “That’s it,” she said. “I only need you for a pack mule.”
That’s all she could say before she had to look away.
She didn’t need him for anything more than that, even if something in her thought perhaps she wanted more.
But that couldn’t be. She couldn’t be falling for Darian. He was entirely wrong for her, no matter what her heart was trying to say.
She didn’t want to follow her heart again, not when it had only led to so much pain before.