1.1 The Fool


"It's annoying," Morzan began, stalking into the black-stone-six-walls she had spent her entire life inside of. For once, he did not close the door behind him. "But it seems that we'll be leaving this wretched desert and going to some prissy elven city, Ilirea or something. The caravan leaves in three hours."

Contrary to her two-legged-no-wings' tense walk and dismissive manner of speech, not that she understood more than one word out of ten, his side of the telepathic bond radiated joy, relief, and smug satisfaction. She couldn't comprehend why he bothered to put on airs around her – was he being tsundere, like many of the characters in the stories in her head, or was he trying to convince himself that he wasn't eager?

She lashed her tail in confusion and accidentally knocked her favorite pillow off of the bed. She stared mournfully down at it. While she was capable of leaping down and grabbing it, climbing back up the bed would be no trivial matter. Which did she want more – the pillow, or the bed? She couldn't decide.

"Behold, my fearsome dragon," Morzan complimented her. She preened while her human kneeled down before her, picked up her fallen pillow, and set it down in front of her. It took but a moment to curl up on top of it – she couldn't lose it again if she was sitting on it, after all. "I need to fetch my possessions before we leave; it'll be a very long time, if ever, before we return to Kraen. I should be back in time for the caravan, but I might be a few minutes late. Damn elves didn't give me any forewarning."

She responded with a burst of affection. He always seemed depressed and wary when he had to leave the room, and while she didn't like these situations any more than he did, she at least had the option to sleep through them and wake up after he returned. For that alone, she was excited for the journey to Ilirea – she wouldn't be able to hide herself away in the black-stone-six-walls any longer, and could follow her Rider wherever he wanted to go.

"I'll keep the link open," he decided, as if there was any other option. He stroked the scales at the crown of her skull, and she purred, attempting to bury her head into his shining, silver palm. He laughed in response, much of the tension fleeing his body. An entirely too short minute later, he rose to his feet, striding out of the room without a single backwards glance. "Later, love."

With her human gone and leaving her with nothing to do, the dragon circled her pillow a couple of times and tried to rest. Sleep, however, proved strangely elusive.

She was excited to leave. The black-stone-six-walls was a nice enough nest, she supposed, for a place given to her for free, but she was a dragon. She wanted open skies, distant horizons, and fresh wind rich with the scent of prey, despite having only hazy memories of what such things are like. This room, even with its sinfully soft pillows and roaring fire to stave off cold nights, lacked so much as a window.

There was a part of her that was reluctant, however. She had some lovely memories, here, many of which wouldn't come twice. This section of floor was where she forged her link with her Rider. That suspiciously stained pillow was where she ate her first meal. Those decorative, completely empty pots was where she had the utterly unrelated realization that humans who only ate plants were weird.

She would miss this place. Not enough to even contemplate staying, but she would miss it.


1.1 The Fool


She slept for all of thirty minutes before her excitement woke her.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty," Morzan greeted her, as had become habit in the two days since her hatching. There was an affectionate thrum to his mind-voice, as well as something archly amused, and she could almost see the grin on his face despite the miles that separated them. "Only two more hours, now."

She whined and restlessly swished her tail through the air, still unable to process her Rider's words but getting the impression that she still had a while to wait before she could see the sky. The only way she could sneak outside any sooner would be to leave the black-stone-six-walls alone, and even if she had the thumbs and height needed to open the door, that would mean disobeying the only rule Morzan gave her. She didn't want to make him mad at her: the very thought of disappointment being sent through their warm and precious link made her scales burn and her wings itch.

What could she do, though? She wanted out of the black-stone-six-walls and didn't want to wait. It was like being trapped in the wall-of-warmth-and-water all over again. There was an entire world outside that she wanted to explore, but she was trapped. She didn't like being confined.

Clawing at her egg had given her a larger nest to claim and even a human to pet her and feed her. Following the realization that the black-stone-six-walls was basically a larger version of the wall-of-warmth-and-water to its logical conclusion, than clawing at that would give her an even larger nest to claim and even more humans to pet her and feed her. It wouldn't even be breaking her Rider's rule – she didn't necessarily need to actually leave the room, just claw at it until she could see what was outside. She had been able to see Morzan himself from within the egg, after all, even though she hadn't been paying attention and had been otherwise occupied.

Decision made, she padded to the edge of the bed and prepared to lunge off. Before she could, however, she remembered the sinfully soft pillow that she had been sleeping on. Once she jumped down, she wouldn't be able to sleep on it anymore. That wouldn't do; her human was away and thus incapable of fetching it for her, which meant she had to grab it now if she wanted it later.

She dashed back to the other side of the bed, latched onto a corner of the pillow with her fangs, and dragged it over to the edge. With a spin and a heave, she hurled the blue pillow right off the bed and onto the floor below. It spun for a couple seconds before thumping against the far wall.

Her mind's eye was suddenly filled with the vision of a small white dragon perched on the edge of a dark-blue bed, staring mournfully down at a fallen pillow.

She followed the image to its source, and found her Rider on the other side of their mental link just about radiating mirth. The dragon shuffled awkwardly on the bed, knowing her sheepish embarrassment was only serving to make Morzan laugh louder. She took solace in the fact that, wherever he was, everyone around him likely thought him insane for suffering a fit of hilarity in public and without apparent cause.

Turning her attention away from her Rider with a squeak of disgruntlement, she leapt from the bed and onto the pillow below. The sense of weightlessness, the feel of air pressing against her outstretched wings, the thrill setting her heart a-pumping – it was beautiful for all that it lasted but a second. She landed onto the soft pillow with a whump and just hummed, high and long, dreaming about the day when she would be big enough to fly.

Her desire to see the sky thus reaffirmed, she raced over to the door she had seen Morzan open so many times before, making sure to bite onto her pillow and take it with her. She narrowed her eyes at the small ribbons-of-white-light streaming into her room from under the door, providing the only illumination in the room aside from a tall lamp in the far corner. She knew enough about the world now to realize that it wasn't something she could just grab onto and hoard underneath her, like a pillow, or her human's hand. But she also knew that the light only came from the parts of the wall-of-warmth-and-water that a claw had punched clean through. This would be the greatest access point to the outside world.

Narrowing her slitted, crimson eyes, she tested the black-stone's defenses with a probing claw swipe. An ear-grating shriek quickly proved to be a worthy riposte as the sound was loud and sudden enough to surprise her into leaping backwards and tumbling over her own tail. Once she righted herself, her tail lashed in chagrin as her human's mind-voice laughed and laughed; he had watched her make a fool of herself, she wasn't sure how but she knew that he did.

Not wanting to admit defeat to a door when her Rider was watching, she haughtily puffed herself up – as if to say, "I totally meant to do that." – and strode back over to the door.

She had to have been clawing at it for several eternities but was according to her human only about three minutes before someone swung it open. As the door swivels inwards, she found herself tripping over her own tail for a second time in as many minutes as she desperately tried to avoid getting smushed inbetween a black-stone door and wall. Sadly, her favorite pillow wasn't nearly as dexterous and was quickly crushed.

Turning accusing eyes up at the cause of her pillow's demise, she squeaked angrily to vent her displeasure. The man failed to show the appropriate levels of fear at the sight of her fierce, draconic rage, which only spurred her to squeak louder and dash from side to side.

"That's Lifaen of House Rílvenar," Morzan's whispered mind-voice told her, accompanied by several stock images of the elf from various points of view and two different outfits, reed pipes often being in his hands. At first glance, he looked a lot like her human, what with his long, dark hair, narrow shoulders, and slim, strong arms. In her opinion, however, he looked boring and generic and not at all like her wonderful Rider. "I have no idea how important the elven Houses are, but winning the affection of one of their member is unlikely to prove worthless. This one is annoyingly peppy and shallow, but he doesn't have a single malicious bone in his body: he'll do. Act as lovable and adorable as you can, as his use to me is directly proportionate to how much he likes you."

She shook in rage and squeaked even louder at the elf still standing stupidly in the doorway, furious. She wasn't cute! She was fire! She was death!

"Very good," Morzan hummed, amused. "Just like that. He's absolutely smitten."

The elf proved her Rider correct as he crooned something unintelligible, dropping to both knees and smiling widely at her. The words he spoke seemed to resonate with something inside of her, and just like the sourceless instinct that she hadn't felt since the before-time, she knew that this man meant her no harm and would protect her with his life. The knowledge soothed her anger, somewhat, and when he reached out to pet her, she allowed it.

As the elf scooped her up into the crook of his arm, carried her away from the black-stone-six-walls, and hummed a merry tune, the white dragon decided her Rider was right about how useful having people to serve her can be. It would have taken her forever to break down that door, assuming she could have managed it at all, and she would only have gotten lost in the veritable labyrinth of black stone for her troubles. This way, she can just sit back, enjoy having her scales scratched, and let someone else do all of the work.

She wondered what else she could get this elf to do for her.


Author's Note: I have no words.