Here's a longer chapter, and just 'cause I forgot last chapter. Xanth does not belong to me. I am simply borrowing them for my own amusement. And yours too…

Drop me a line and tell me what you're thinking!

Satori B.

Part Six

Questions Answered, also entitled, of Almost Common Ground

*~*

"Well, this is interesting…" I remark dryly, still sitting on the monster's back. "Tag, I think you broke him."

"Articana, he's listening to see if there is anything out there that is going to eat us, unless you want him to toss you off so you can discover this for yourself – he'd like for you to keep quiet." Tag bit back, whispering so as not to distract whatever the dragon was doing.

This took me back, a little bit anyway.

"You can communicate with him?" I whisper as quietly as I knew how.

"Yes," he replies, not looking back at me, "it's – "

"Complicated…" I sigh, "I get the point..."

Finally the dragon looks to be done. Well, he raises his head and starts flapping his huge scaled wings, I'm guessing that would be as good a sign as any to see that he was getting ready to take off.

"Hold on Articana," Tag says, holding the reins tightly, "this is going to be a little rough."

With a few powerful flaps of the dragon's wings we were hovering a few feet above the floor of the accursed pit. I, despite not wanting to, cling tightly to Tag's tunic and don't let go. Suddenly we tilted up, as in totally vertical, and were speeding up the wall.

I couldn't close my eyes, this was too unbelievable.

I was flying!

And I was scared out of my mind.

In what seem like hours, but were actually seconds, I could see the forest and site where I'd left Blackhurricane to graze.

"Are you alright?" Tag asks, turning back to me, effortlessly guiding the dragon clear of the trees and branches.

"Yeah, I'll be okay." I say, trying to not sound too scared, I might have succeeded. I was actually getting used to it. Flying I mean, not being scared. I could feel the muscles below me work smoothly, raising me up and down every couple of seconds with the movement of the wings. I wasn't feeling sick and was able to watch the scenery pass me by without loosing my lunch.

"He wants to stay up for a little bit longer, would that be okay?" He obviously didn't want me to be up here if I were going to start with the sarcastic comments again. "I mean, if you don't we can always land and we can be on our way…"

"No, that's fine," I tentatively loosen my death grip on his tunic, and seeing that I'm not going to fall to my death immediately, relax some of my other stiff muscles, trying not to, in the process, aggravate my growing bruises. "Blackhurricane's lasted this long with me trapped in that hole, I'm sure he'll be fine for another couple of minutes."

He smiles and flicks the reins gently against the beast's toughened scales. We make a wide turn and do what I'm guessing was a normal perimeter check, judging by the ease at which they accomplish it. I notice a grove of pie trees that I missed on my own scouting mission. What a way to travel! I almost wish the Lord Arcturo, may his name be cursed eternally, had kept dragons instead of horses, I would have been at Jade's cave by now if I had a dragon!

But then I wouldn't have had Blackhurricane… never mind, Blackhurricane is too good of a horse to be wishing for anything else.

In a few minutes of easy gliding we land in the clearing beside Blackhurricane, who, to his credit, didn't bolt away when a dragon landed beside him.

Of course that may have been because he was so engrossed in eating that he wouldn't have noticed if an entire herd of dragons landed beside him and started dancing the Tangle Tree Tango…

I slid off the back of the creature, he was sitting calmly, waiting for us to disembark.

There was an uncomfortable silence where I look at my boots and wait for Tag to get off.

"Um… Tag, thanks for getting me out of there."

He smiles, "No problem, I'm sure you would have figured a way out eventually."

"Maybe," I reply, "but this was probably the most effective way," I glance at the dragon, "if not the easiest."

He turned to get back on the dragon.

"Wait, do you want to camp out here? There's enough food to go around, and it's big enough that your friend can fit too."

"That would be great," Tag says, smiling tiredly, "it's not easy work, saving damsels in distress all day."

"I don't doubt it, though what would you call saving me?"

He raises an eye at my comeback.

Hey, I've already said it, I hate the title.

"Saving an almost damsel in distress."

"I'll give you that one. Now come on, let's get some sort of fire started, your friend there doesn't happen to have any firebreather blood in him does he? 'Cause if we have to rely on my firebuilding skills, it's going to be a long time before we get anything cooked."

"He's a special case."

It was my turn to quirk an eyebrow, he sighs resignedly and answers, "Complicated."

*~*

In no time at all we had a merry fire crackling away in the sand near the mirror river, supplied generously by Tag's little friend, who I had affectionately come to call Sye, for reasons unknown to anyone, even me.

I guess that's kinda sad…

Sye, Tag, Blackhurricane and I sat around the fire. Those that were able to, rest on logs gathered from the forest. We ate a fairly good meal consisting of our shared supplies. Tag put forth his bread and I shared the fruit I had scrounged from the Lord's orchard. For dessert we had pies of various types warmed before the fire.

"So, Tag, ready to talk about Sye here?" I ask, pointing to where he was lounging, stretched out in front of the flames. Tag, who was resting his feet on his back and occasionally rubbing Sye's scales with his boot, looks up to the now fully starlit sky.

"Well, it all started off the day I discovered my talent. It was the happiest day of my life because I finally was able to do what I dreamed of, talk to dragons."

I gasp unconsciously, what a talent! Dangerous albeit, when you wanted to use it, but far better than what I had. Tag either didn't hear me or choose to ignore me and continued.

"I was twelve at the time, my father and I were travelling home from the South Village when a dragon happened across the enchanted path. We started to run but then I heard him, the dragon was asking for help, its wing was broken and it couldn't fix it. If he couldn't fly he couldn't get to his trove of treasure hidden in his nest, that was apparently, his only reason for seeking help.

"He was only young, and I guess he had never been that far out of the woods, or maybe he just forgot, anyway, he tried talking to us but my father only tried to pull me away. I then realized that he couldn't understand, but I could! It was amazing; I had seen my first dragon and discovered that I could talk to them as well.

"It took awhile to explain everything to my dad, who was just about ready to take on the dragon with his walking stick. When he finally believed that I understood the growls and raspings of the beast before him, we fixed his wing and ran home to tell mother that I discovered my talent."

"So you and Sye have been together since you were twelve?" I ask, "that's some loyalty."

He looks at me strangely, as if I had said something in an entirely different language.

"What? Did I say something wrong?"

He laughs, "Oh no, it's just that… Sye isn't the same dragon that I helped all those years ago, that one ran off as soon as his wing was put back into place. Sye's a special case."

"So I've heard."

He pauses, thinking of how to continue in his narrative.

"I discovered a few months later that talking to dragons wasn't the only thing I could do with my talent. Talking to them was only one aspect of the greater nature of my talent. It seemed that I had the ability to spilt into two beings. One human and one beast. That beast is what you see before you."

I look down, and am surprised to see two strangely human eyes looking back up at me from the ground. I look back up at Tag and see two somewhat ruthless eyes staring back at me. Or at least they would have looked ruthless and deadly if they had not been Tag's eyes. On him, they were mysterious and…

Wrong way to think right now, get back on track…

"So Sye is you?"

"Sye, as you call him, is half of me, the bestial half of me put into dragon form. But like I said," he adds hurriedly seeing me inch away from the dragon's head, "he isn't violent or evil, I guess I wasn't that bad of a person to produce an evil dragon."

"That's good I guess."

"I had to leave my village, I knew that there was no way that they would let me stay there, even if I was able to control when Sye… appeared."

"You can't control it?" I ask, disturbed.

"Well, it's not so much controlling… he can't stay in me all the time. He has to be free of my body for at least half the day. He can stay out for as long as we want though, I'm not sure why. Since I discovered this aspect of my talent I've never been able to withhold him for more than twelve hours."

"Well I can understand why you left the village, that wouldn't be easy to explain to people would it?"

"No, not really. My parents didn't want me to leave but I have a restless spirit anyway so the council's decision suited me just fine." He shrugs; this is apparently far in the past for him to talk about it with such ease.

"It was the council's decision eh? I've never liked them… well, the ones at home anyway. That's great though, at least you don't feel unwanted," I say out loud. Unlike some other unfortunate person we all know and love. "So in a way, we're both outlaws."

He looks at me quizzically.

I smirk.

"It's complicated."