Chapter 2 #2
“It may not be that simple,” Astrid says mildly, looking at me over the rim of her mug.
“But I see what you mean. I never considered a caveman. And I’m glad I didn’t.
Loving a dragon is insanely demanding. I mean, everything around it.
The love itself, just the two of us, is the easiest thing in the world.
And the best. Not that I recommend getting close with the one you saw.
Those things are deadly and some are genuinely evil, in the true sense of the word.
I only barely survived Praxigor’s courting. ”
I lean my head back until it touches the headrest. “What do I do, Astrid? The tribe really wants me to get married to calm things down. But I don’t want to. Not like that.”
“Not like that,” Astrid echoes. “I’m not convinced you absolutely need to marry.
It might not change anything. It might just make things worse, because now the only chance a caveman has of ever having a wife is killing a married man and hoping the widow will choose him.
But I will say this, because it’s just obvious: Being married has made all the girls much happier than they were before. Including me.”
“It sure seems that way,” I say with a little smile as I get up and put the mug on the table. “Thanks for the experimental drink. I think it could be decent enough with ten ounces of sugar in it.”
“You think ten would be enough?” Astrid asks, swirling the liquid in her mug. “I was thinking twelve. And six big strawberries. Now all we need is to find a sugar mine and a strawberry factory. Sorry, it’s just that I’m pregnant and I have the silliest cravings right now.”
I leave her hut, and make my way back to the Red Rock. I can tell that someone has talked to her about persuading me to at least try a caveman. Probably Korr’ax himself. But she resisted it, and I’m grateful for that. Still, there’s not much she can do.
The tribesmen I meet greet me with sweet smiles, but avoid talking to me. That’s on Korr’ax’s orders, probably suggested by Bryar so as not to overwhelm me with awkward caveman suitors. He’d rather show them to me one by one.
That won’t last forever. As time goes on, tensions might get worse and Korr’ax might simply tell me outright to find a husband. So far the attempts have been moderately subtle, but he’s a man of action, and if he wants something he tends to get it.
Most of the men I meet are green-striped ones from the Borok tribe, but some have yellow stripes and come from the Tretter tribe that Korr’ax also rules. There are many more of those than usual, so I guess he’s got a whole roster ready to show to me if none of the Borok guys pass my muster.
“Yikes,” I mutter to myself as I pass one layer of guards at the foot of the stairs. They smile and flex their muscles as they let me pass, and in my state of mind I find them all sickeningly ingratiating.
“They don’t know any better,” I remind myself between clenched teeth. “They’ve never seen girls before. They have no clue.”
When I approach the top of the stairs, I hear some of the girls are talking at the penthouse plateau. They go quiet when they spot me, so I think I can guess what their topic was.
It’s Cora, Riley and Piper, picking at a woven basket with nuts and berries.
“Hi,” I greet them. “Still no birth?”
“Not yet,” Cora says. “Alba’s baby is a stubborn one. But we’ll get there.”
I glance over at the flying saucer. “How’s he doing in there, Myron the Plood?”
“Seems fine,” Riley tells me. “As long as he doesn’t have to come up with any ideas or show any initiative, he’s happy just flying the saucer.”
I glance out over the jungle. “Such a weird thing, being a pure servant species. Someone must have genetically altered them, right?”
“Could be,” Piper says, gently rocking the baby in her arms. “Or just designed them from scratch. Though at this point, nothing about this planet would surprise me. Maybe dragons made them somehow. Maybe they just found each other and decided the arrangement worked.”
Riley snorts softly. “I think the Plood side of the arrangement got the short end of the stick.”
“Depends,” Piper says. “They seem weirdly happy about serving.”
Gazing out over endless miles of jungle, I find myself hoping to see a dark shape in between the trees down there. But all I see are occasional small, white blobs. “I think I can see some of them down there. Are they migrating, or what?”
“We think they’re trying to find that dragon who kept showing up around Callie,” Riley says. “Vyrathion, I think she called him. Dark scales with gold through them.”
My eyes drift back to the jungle before I can stop them. All the places you can’t go.
“Sounds like him,” I say, trying to sound more casual than I feel. “Did Callie ever figure out how to get rid of him?”
Riley shrugs. “She married Crat'ax. After that, the dragon stopped showing up.”
“Convenient,” I mutter.
“Maybe,” Riley says. “Or maybe dragons lose interest once they think someone belongs to somebody else.”
I pick a dark blue berry from the basket. “So what’s he doing here?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” Cora says. “There’s no gold here, as far as we know. And if Astrid is right, most dragons prefer to stay far away from each other.”
Riley nods. “Praxigor definitely does. I don’t think he even likes hearing about other dragons.”
“Exactly,” Cora says. “So having one suddenly appear here feels strange.”
Nobody says what we are all clearly thinking.
I look down at the berries in my hand. “You think he came here for me?” I ask, trying for humor and not quite getting there. “Because apparently my life wasn’t complicated enough already.”
“It’s not impossible,” Piper says and spits a seed into her palm. “We know dragons can be attracted to Earth women to the point where they forget their gold addiction. Or he was here for a different purpose altogether. Maybe he was curious about the Red Rock or the village itself.”
The words hang in the air. None of them believe it. Even I don’t. But if Vyrathion was here for me, why did he just leave? He seemed more surprised than anything else.
I nod towards the saucer. “Think I can get Myron to fly me back to Earth?”
The girls exchange glances. They have clearly discussed this possibility before, probably when I am not around.
“It would be dangerous,” Cora says carefully. “That saucer crashed once already, then spent years abandoned and then a week half-frozen in a glacier. We still don’t really know what shape it’s in.”
“And we don’t know if Myron listens to anyone except me,” Riley adds. “That becomes a serious issue if you’re halfway to Earth.”
I fold my arms. “I’d still rather take my chances than sit up here waiting for Korr’ax to assign me a husband.”
Nobody answers immediately. That tells me enough.
“Morgan,” Riley says quietly, “I get it. Seriously. A few weeks ago, I wanted to go home so badly it physically hurt.”
“We all did,” Theodora says gently. “Nobody thinks you’re wrong for feeling this way. We just want to make sure you survive- oh, jeez.”
A caveman comes up to the plateau, looking very serious as he checks for dactyls and dragons. He notices me and straightens up as he poses against the view of the jungle, pretending to scan the sky for dangers.
We all look at him in silence, with me glaring daggers, and finally he senses the awkwardness and calmly walks back down the stairs.
“They have to try,” Riley sighs. “They all want a wife.”
“And I don’t want a husband,” I say as I brush nut crumbs from my hands. “So I guess we’re at a stalemate until Korr’ax decides to hold a raffle and hand me out as the grand prize.”
Nobody laughs.
I swallow. “Or maybe I become a traveling trophy,” I continue, hearing my own voice start to shake. “One week each. Have to be fair. Wasn’t that basically what the ice tribe wanted with you, Riley? The Borok can’t be all that different.”
“Morgan,” Cora begins carefully.
“Nobody needs to say it,” I tell them. “I’m having every man in the tribe paraded in front of me. That tells me everything I need to know.” I force a smile that feels brittle. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin lunch. I think I need a nap.” I leave before anyone can stop me.
Nobody calls after me, and somehow that makes everything feel worse.
Maybe they are trying to give me space. Maybe the moment I disappear down the stairs, they all exchange worried looks and start discussing me like I am some kind of emotional emergency.
Riley probably defends me. Cora probably says I am under pressure, which is true enough.
Someone probably points out that Korr’ax really is trying to solve a problem for the tribe, and that makes heat creep up my neck all over again.
Wonderful. Now I have managed to embarrass myself in front of the only people who actually understand what being stranded on this planet feels like.
I descend the stairs from the plateau more quickly than usual, one hand trailing against the rough stone wall as I go. I pass two layers of posted guards on the way, and I feel their stares at my back.
When I reach my cave, I sigh. “Shit.” I’ve forgotten to pull the leather hanging across the opening, so the sun has heated the cave up so much it’s like a baker’s oven in there.
But I know another place, so I pull the leather curtain across the cave opening and keep walking down the stairs.
The air is warm, and it presses against my skin as if the village is aware of me again and quietly deciding what I am supposed to do next.
I walk without picking a direction at first. My feet take the familiar paths between huts and fires and half-finished structures, past men who pause just long enough to look at me before returning to what they were doing.
Heat creeps back into my face as I replay what just happened on the plateau. My own voice comes back in fragments I wish I could drop. Traveling trophy. Raffle. I had heard myself saying it, even while another part of me was still trying to stop it.