Every Thorn Has Its Rose Chapter 11

"Good morning, Spina!" St. Hubbins called jovially. "How are you this morning?"

"I am fine, but I shall be even better once I have eaten," Spina answered.

"Again? You ate a whole cow last night! I can't believe you're hungry again."

Spina blinked twice. "You eat three meals a day, and I do not judge you for that. Is it so terrible that I like to fill my belly when it feels empty?"

"I suppose not," the lieutenant nodded reluctantly. "But there's been some sort of cock-up in the supply deliveries today. They won't be bringing you any food until tomorrow. You'll have to take your meal with the other dragons on the breeding ground."

Spina growled in displeasure. "They've forgotten about me again? They have a strange way of showing me that I am special. And you have no idea when the feeding bell will ring. Is that correct?"

St. Hubbins nodded. "Whenever they drive the livestock onto the grounds, that's when they ring the bell." He glanced over his shoulder; Rose was just joining them. "Ahh, Ensign Smalls, it's so good of you to join us this morning. Do you have some good reason why you are so very late?"

She made eye contact with Spina to avoid making eye contact with the lieutenant. "It was... a woman's issue. Good morning, Spina. How are you this morning?"

St. Hubbins spoke before Spina could answer. "Ensign Smalls, we do not have 'women's issues' in the Corps."

"You do now," she said over her shoulder. "Sir."

"Rose, you're on the fine edge of insubordination," the man said firmly. "I do not wish to be unkind, but we do have to maintain some semblance of military discipline here. I require a full explanation for why you were late to your station this morning."

She stiffened to attention. "Very good, sir. Precisely how detailed a description of my monthly bleeding do you require? And shall I summon the supply chief, as a witness to the difficulty I had in acquiring the necessary materials to avoid soiling my uniform during the upcoming week?"

St. Hubbins turned crimson and turned away. He'd hoped to embarrass Smalls into toeing the line. It had backfired badly; she was still nowhere near toeing the line, and now they were both embarrassed. They all stood in silence for several seconds.

At last, Rose spoke. "Spina, you haven't eaten yet."

"You are not the only one who had problems with the supply chief," Spina answered, oblivious to the interaction between the two humans. "There will be no food delivery for me today. I must eat with the breeding dragons again."

"Spina, you realize that if you keep stealing animals out from under the other dragons' noses, there is going to be trouble! I've heard that some of them have complained to the breeding-ground master about you. You must learn some manners in how you treat them."

"If they snooze, they lose," Spina said airily. "If they are not quick enough to hold onto their prey, is that my fault?"

"I'm not sure the breeding dragons will see it that way," Rose admonished her. "I don't want to see you get into a fight; you're too important to England, and you're too important to me. Please be more careful."

"When I get hungry, it is the other dragons who need to be careful," Spina said dismissively. "Lt. St. Hubbins, what shall I do while I wait for the feeding bell?"

The lieutenant had recovered his composure sufficiently to try speaking again. "I think... I think we shall talk about signal flags today." He went into the barn to fetch the flag bag. The signals were colorful and new to Spina, so she paid full attention as he explained how signal codes worked, and demonstrated the most common ones. Rose also followed the lesson; she didn't memorize all of it on the first try, but she grasped the basics.

"Which of us will send the signals when we are in the air?" she asked when he was done.

"When Spina is full-grown, she will have a crew, including one man who is solely responsible for sending and reading signals," St. Hubbins answered. "His position will be near me, so he and I can quickly communicate. You will need to be aware of the formation commander's location so you can read his signals, if need be, but your main responsibility will be toward your dragon. You are learning this so that you can take over and read the signals, in the event of casualties among the crew."

"Casualties?" Rose felt a chill. "Is that likely?"

"Likely? It is a virtual certainty in battle. Dragons try to fight other dragons, but the human crews are most likely to fight other human crews. A favorite tactic is for sharpshooters to whittle away at a dragon's crew, then jump from their dragon to the enemy dragon's back and take the captain hostage. The hostile dragon won't fight if its captain is at risk, so we can capture the dragon without harming it. Unfortunately, the enemy will try to do the same thing to us. So you must be ready to take my place, or your signalman's place, if one of us falls in battle."

Rose knew she was in the military. She knew that dragons were expected to fight, and that people get killed in wartime. But that abstract concept had just become real. A French or Spanish dragon crew might very well shoot St. Hubbins, and then put a sword to her back to force Spina to surrender. She tried to envision... and shook her head violently to get that image out of her mind.

"Perhaps I should learn to handle a pistol and a sword?" she asked.

"You will," St. Hubbins nodded. "Very soon."

The breeding-ground feeding bell sounded as the humans were finishing their lunch. Rose watched as Spina leaped into the air and swung her head back and forth, searching greedily for the incoming livestock. "I really hope she doesn't cause a problem with the other dragons again," she said to the others.

"It might be good if she did," Shrimpton commented through a mouthful of chicken. "The other dragons will put her in her place, and she will be more tractable as a result. She is far too independent-minded for a Corps dragon. She needs to be taught a lesson."

"I am not convinced that you're seeing her realistically," St. Hubbins replied. Only Rose caught the understatement in his tone.

Spina gained some height so she could see where the livestock were, and of what sort they were. She saw the rising dust cloud first, and soon made out its source – cows! Her favorite! She sped up, determined to be the first dragon to reach the herd. But dozens of of the breeding dragons had emerged from their caves and lairs at the sound of the bell, and they loved cows as much as she did. They would get there first. Well, then it would become a test of speed and determination. She had plenty of both. She went into a shallow dive, and felt her airspeed rise.

She picked out a likely victim from the back of the herd; she was going to heed Rose's advice about not stealing from the other dragons if she could. But a big gray-and-black Parnassian was getting right in front of her! She tucked her legs up even tighter than normal, rose slightly, and shot just over the bigger dragon's head. He ducked and roared, "Hey, you! Watch yourself! That was too close!" She ignored him, struck, and staggered into the air with her lunch. She was big enough to eat a whole cow at once, but not big enough to carry one off for any distance, so she picked a nearby hillock to land on.

She hadn't even begun to tear into her repast when five dragons stormed up to her, led by the Parnassian and an equally angry Yellow Reaper. The other three were smaller breeds that she didn't recognize; they might be captives from other nations' Aviator Corps. "We want a word with you, blue dragon," the Reaper demanded.

"Can it wait until after I have eaten?" Spina asked.

"No! You seem to think you own this breeding ground and everything in it, and you are very much mistaken. We have an established way of handling mealtimes here. We all take turns, starting with the largest, so everyone gets something to eat, even if we do not all get enough every day. It is not your place to help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it! We are going to stop this rudeness, right now."

"Is that a fact?" Spina asked with deceptive calm. "And which of you is going to do the stopping?"

"Are you really going to defy the group?" the Yellow Reaper demanded. "Do you think you can outfight all of us?"

"That remains to be seen," she answered, keeping her voice mild, even though she was tensing up for fight or flight.

The Yellow Reaper scratched a long line in the rock in front of her with her claw. "You may start with me. I defy you to step across that line."

Spina tracked the line with her head and squirted acid along its length. The venom hissed, bubbled, and smoked as it ate into the rock. "No, you step across that line," she demanded.

All the other dragons backed off a step and stared in horror at what she'd done. At last, the Reaper asked, "What are you?"

"What am I?" she echoed incredulously. Then she pulled herself erect and spread her wings to make herself appear larger. "I am the Longwing, Spina, daughter of Petrov of Russia and Aurelia of England. I am the British Empire's best hope, and your worst nightmare. I am the first of my kind, and the last thing you will ever see, if you cross that line. I am awesomeness personified and the embodiment of destruction. And I am very hungry!" She paused for breath. "Who are you?"

The Yellow Reaper hesitated. She knew that she could outfight this young dragon if it came to teeth and claws, but that still-smoldering line in the rock gave her pause. "I am... I am having second thoughts about this encounter." She turned to the Parnassian. "Perhaps you would like to try reasoning with her?"

The Parnassian glared down at her. "You realize, of course, that we will report your behavior to the breeding-ground master?"

Spina acted afraid. "Oh, no! Not that! Please do not report me to the breeding-ground master! He might scold me, or spank me!" Then she resumed her normal pose and snorted. "I have two human riders, which is more than any of you have managed at a time, and I am keeping both of them in line quite nicely, thank you very much. Should I fear the breeding-ground master? What can he do to me, that I should worry?"

One of the smaller dragons spoke up, with a strong French accent. "She thinks she is better than us because she is not imprisoned here."

"That has nothing to do with it," Spina retorted.

"It is true that you do not understand our situation," the Yellow Reaper objected. "You can come and go as you please – you have a captain and a harness! You can hunt your food anywhere that the humans allow. We would be hunted down like criminals if we strayed off the grounds."

"And there is nothing out there that is worth straying for," the Parnassian added. "The humans have either rejected us, or proven themselves to be unworthy of us. The only things we have left are mating and food, and there is seldom enough food to fill all of us. And you are poaching our food."

"They try to provide one animal for each of us," the Reaper continued. "Sometimes there are extras; sometimes there are not. If there are extras, the large dragons get them. One goat is barely enough for a middleweight dragon like me. When you take what is ours, you take food right out of our bellies."

Spina was taken aback by all this. "Well... it is not completely true that I misunderstand your situation. I have been meeting with my mother, Aurelia, on the other side of the mountain, and she has told me much about the way things are here. But I admit, I did not realize how important your food was to you, or that there was not enough of it. I... I am sorry."

"Why do you take our food at all?" the Reaper asked. "Do they not provide you with choice animals to eat every day in that fine new barn of yours?"

"On most days, they do," Spina admitted, "but there are some days when they forget about me. On those days, I suppose I know exactly how you feel. From now on, when that happens, I will wait in line with the rest of you, and not rush to take my share first."

"They forget about you?" The little dragon with the French accent was amazed. "I thought they treated you like the princess!"

"No, humans can be forgetful toward all of us sometimes," Spina answered. "My riders are kind, but even they have much to learn about dragons." She glanced again at the French dragon, who looked quite thin and bony. "Would you like to share half of my cow?"

The dragon licked his chops hungrily. "No one has ever offered me half of anything before! How shall we share it?"

Spina carved a line along the dead cow's flank with a foreclaw. "Everything to the rear of that line is yours. I will eat after you have finished."

"You are most kind. Thank you!" The little dragon tore into the cow with gusto. Spina waited until he had just swallowed a bite, then asked, "What is your name?"

"I am called Rapide-flèche," he answered with a touch of embarrassment. "It is an extravagant name for a dragon like me. I am but a lowly Pou-de-Ciel, not a special dragon like you. I did not even deserve a Latin name like the others. When the English captured my capitaine and forced me to come here, I do not think anyone in my formation noticed that I was gone. You are the first one, human or dragon, to show me kindness in a very long time." He took another bite.

As the French dragon ate, Spina engaged the others in polite conversation. The Yellow Reaper's name was Patricia (she pronounced it "Pa-TREE-see-ah"), and the Parnassian was called Redonculus. They were curious about her situation, especially how she had wound up with two riders. The other two small dragons wandered away once they saw that they would get no food here. By the time Rapide-flèche was done with his half of the cow, the four dragons were conversing like old friends.

"It seems that we misjudged you," Redonculus commented.

"There were misunderstandings all around," Spina answered him. "Fortunately, we all stopped to talk before things got out of control."

"Fortunate, indeed," Patricia nodded. "It is a shame that the humans cannot learn that lesson as well."

o

A/N
Spina's "who am I?" speech was very much inspired by a similar speech given by Susan Ivanova in the Babylon 5 episode "Between the Darkness and the Light."