Chapter 5: Beginning

Erik watched the girl sleep tucked against his side and laid his head down at last. He did not need to eat very much, having had that large deer earlier, but the human seemed to hunger every few hours, at least twice a day. Perhaps it was because human digestive organs were smaller and their bodies less efficient than those of dragons. Still, it was not something he was used to, going hunting every day.

He had spat a little fire into Christine's bath, and dragon fire, magical as it was, burned long and on whatever it landed without consuming it if he wished, even water. It was his consideration towards his little friend, and he ignored how disturbing it was that he should be going out of his way so that she might live comfortably. He had even gone out and gathered bunches of fruits and various edible plants, and stored them in a cold cavity in the back of his home.

A disturbance in the air reached his ears, and a distinctive scent of pungent spices made his nose itch. Of course he would choose now to disturb me, Erik grumbled to himself. Nadir never had any sense of good timing.

Christine mumbled and shifted in her sleep, as if she could also sense the impudent Persian dragon's arrival. Said dragon glided into the cave with a rather smug expression on his wispy-mustached face and coiled himself into a stack of gaudy orange and green scales. I know you do not sleep, Erik. Raise your head and tell me what possessed you to acquire a human, of all creatures!

Erik opened one eye and twisted his muzzle into the shape of a half-snarl, but Nadir did naught but chuckle and snake forward to nudge his friend in the ribs. It has been a mere two years since I saw you last, wingless fool. Can you not place a more reasonable amount of time between your invasions of my life?

Christine blinked slowly, confused. "Erik- oh!" She curled in on herself and tucked her head to her knees. Erik wanted to flay Nadir's side open for waking the girl. Nadir, as if reading his thoughts, gave him a saucy look and proceeded to address the little human.

Good evening to you, human. You may know me as Nadir the Great and Terrible-

Erik decided to cut him off before he could give a dissertation on his many titles. You mean, Nadir the Egotistic and Annoying. Christine laughed and stood up, withdrawing her body heat from Erik's side. He tried to pretend he did not miss the small amount of weight and heat. It was startling, the contrast between his cool scales (despite his core body temperature) and her warm skin. Nadir gave him a side-glance and the barest hint of a wink.

"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, O Egotist," she said with an exaggerated nod, and made a slight bow. What once Erik considered annoying he now thought of as a frustrating distraction. It irked him that he should be…envious, dare he say? - Of Christine's company and smiles. Nadir's presence and knowing looks were not helping in the slightest. It was all-out ridiculous as well; that she should be immediately charmed by the forward, brazen Nadir when it had taken him days to earn her trust!

Now that we are all acquainted, I suggest you leave, Nadir, before Christine in her ignorance of our ways offends your sensitive ego, since you are now The Egotist. Christine seemed to find ever more humor in his statement, and launched into a full, ringing laugh.

Nadir's countenance fell almost immediately, and Christine's laugh faded as she sensed solemnity fill the air. The Persian dragon's red eyes looked balefully down at her. It is not a matter for human ears, though I have no doubt that the matter concerned is beyond your comprehension in any case. Erik growled, sending shivers down the girl's spine. The wispy hairs along Nadir's spine seemed to stiffen and stand out, and he almost visibly flinched.

It had been quite some time since he had heard Erik snarl like so, and he had forgotten how terrifying his long-time ally could be. Perhaps it was bad for his health for Erik to be in possession of a human, as he was obviously quite protective of the little creature.

Erik glared mercilessly at his slinky friend. Christine will hear the matter. She is as clever as any conscious being and sometimes- here he glided almost silkily over to Nadir's narrow snout- wiser than certain Asiatic persons in this general area.

Christine shivered again. He would defend her so much before one he had obviously known for far longer than she? How had she earned such protection?

Nadir was forced to look away and muttered softly, Yes, yes, very well… He did not push Erik further by pointing out that it was beyond strange for him to keep a human anyway, though it did occur to him. The council meeting is this full moon. Have you forgotten? The other reptile radiated displeasure while Christine sat and listened.

I never forget, Erik said.

You must bring the human with you. She is one of the subjects of discussion.

Her, or my keeping her?

Both. Nadir's fuzzy ears tipped themselves down and laid flat in fear as black smoke and cinders poured from between yellowing, bared teeth. The girl huddled between the two giants swallowed. If she could not stay with Erik, where would she go, naked and starving? She could not go back to the village, and she could not walk all the way to another city in such a condition, not with winter coming. Her friend was obviously incensed at the idea himself.

You are still a very amateur liar, Nadir Khan. This was spoken softly, but laced with a threat. At this declaration, both dragons looked at Christine, who decided in the back of her mind that gold was a much more beautiful color than red for eyes. At the forefront of her mind, however, was the very unnerving stare directed at her and what it could mean.

I will return for you on the night appointed, then. As much as you dislike the company of the council, this matter could not wait- not when it is unhealthy for you to keep a pet such as she. With that, he unwound his long, snaky body and slunk out of the cave.

Christine, still mesmerized by the metallic lights in her dragon companion's eyes, breathed slowly until the last trace of orange and white fluff disappeared into the sky.

"Will I have to leave?" The words traced vapor into the air, and it smelled of the smoke of incense to Erik. He paused to take in the scent before formulating an answer.

No. I will not let them force their rules on me, for I never have. You are too useful to me. He also took into consideration their fast (in more ways than one) friendship.

"I will have nowhere to go if they take me away." And in any case…I do not want to leave, not even if I could continue life as a healer in the village. It was too lonely. This conclusion startled her. She had not had a true friend since her father.

You will always have a place to stay here, even if it is not your home. The once angry eyes were solemn and gentle now, and did not match with the fearsome claws and spiked head. It was a comparison that struck her as revealing, and deep.

"Why would they want to take me away?" She touched the dark scales of Erik's nose and marveled at the soft, even texture. "Why is it so…displeasing that we should have a bond such as we do?"

Many of my kind are purists, and consider any other species inferior. They believe that I am deranged, or at least strange, which, in reality, is not far from the truth, he mused. It has been a long evening. Nadir always did have horrid timing. He huffed slightly, hot air wreathing Christine's torso like a quilt. You should sleep. Her reply was soft, but as clever as her former banter.

"You should sleep as well." Her hand caressed the side of his jaw, and her eyes, as he saw them in that moment, were like two drops of molten silver. Had they changed color since he'd examined them last?

I do not need to.

"Yes, you do." And in that moment, he felt exhausted. It had taken someone else to notice his fatigue. His bones were tired of supporting the rest of him. He had not slept for nearly a whole day.

So he lay down and kept his head tilted towards the girl as she settled herself next to him. It felt so natural to her, this way of life. If it did not, she would have attempted to escape, or killed herself- one of those things humans did that he never understood.

This time she curled into a ball with her back to his nose, head cushioned by a loop of whip-like tail. The bones of her spine made small bumps from the base of her neck to the small of her back. It was an interesting pattern to him, mostly because for once, the similarities between dragon and human physiology could be seen.

Her ribs rose and fell the same way his did, with the bellows of his lungs, and she had a heartbeat like his that he could feel slowing as she slept. Her shoulder blades, too, were like his, but missing the wings and muscles attached.

As his eyes drifted closed, he thought he saw the hard glimmer of armor along her spine…but blinked and perceived only the reflection of fire on soft skin.

…

Ciara paged through the book of spells she had found in the shop with help from its keeper, but without luck. To her wandering fingers the tome was just a stack of dusty, fragile sheets.

Her hope had been restored after seeing the blemishes and rashes erased from a young girl's skin. If the very nature of one's skin could be changed, why not all of oneself?

It was early morning, and not wanting to attract attention from those who knew she was blind, she had come before most of the customers would arrive.

A warm hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped. "You could not be reading- what are you doing here? Is that for someone else?" It was Philippe, he who smelled of cleanliness and the smallest hint of mint. Perhaps he'd had only a cup of tea that morning. "Please, be at ease; I am here for a book, like you." She ducked her head, feeling a flush come over her.

He continued as if nothing was wrong. "Would you like me to read the book for you, so you may know what it holds?" Philippe noted the title with interest: The Magic of Change, Medicine, and Fortune.

She nodded shyly and awkwardly held the book out in his general direction, not wanting to have to place it directly into his hands. The warmth of sunlight made her blush more profuse, but he kindly ignored it. She looks rather nice when she turns pink. He took the book from her and flipped to the table of contents, but his eyes strayed to her again and again as he read. "You wish for healing?"

She shook her head, and he had to clench his fists to keep from brushing the white hairs from her eyes, for that would inevitably lead to touching her face…and he might not be able to restrain himself from there. "What about the changing spells?" Her chin dipped in a small nod.

He began reading through the subheadings in dark ink. "Old to New." No. "Fair Skin." Most emphatically no. He smiled to himself and had to hold back a chuckle. She would not need lighter skin, would she?

"Table Scrap to Banquet?" No again. But then she didn't eat much, did she? "Tidiness, perhaps?" Still no affirmative. "Weight Loss-" He was almost cut off from the haste with which she refuted that particular choice. "Of course. I did not mean to offend you. What about Color?"

She paused for a moment- that was a spell that would benefit her, if not change her for good. Then she shook her head yet again. Having never experienced color, she could turn herself something wholly unattractive- like that shade called bright orange. Philippe flipped the page- it was blank. "That is all there is in this book. Would you like me to find you another?"

Ciara could hardly contain her smile, but she had to shake her head yet again. Did he not have more important things to do than help her? He had a household to run, and she had to return to work under his supervision, as always. She backed up and stumbled into the shelf behind her, motioning for him to leave, but he could see she did not truly wish him to leave. "You are clearly smiling," he teased, grinning himself. "Here," he said, picking another book from the columns of processed wood and hide, "this one. Spells for the more Advanced Magician."

They searched that book as well, more laughing at the odd titles than looking for a solution to a problem. They were enjoying themselves too much.

A maid, little Mara, walked by the shop and stopped to stare at the two, eyes large and round. It was almost time for the households all over town to wake and begin their daily business, but here was Philippe, the master of the house, talking and laughing while Ciara smiled as if smiling was an action she was accustomed to. When she was with him, her smiling was easy and natural.

It was obvious even to the young girl that they were very much in love.

She decided to keep her mouth shut about it, though. After all, if she had a sweetheart, she wouldn't want to be the subject of gossip for weeks on end?

…

Raoul blinked and then winced. A large bruise covered his eyebrow and a portion of his forehead. And how had he ended up on the floor? He had been listening to the old woman explain about the journals, and- oh.

He sat up and rubbed the sore spot on his head, and hissed. The old lady had a very good aim with that basket.

The ashes of the kindling drifted towards him through rays of late morning sunlight, and he scrambled to his feet, panicking. Where were the journals? He looked about, at the counter, and the floor, and- there they were, in the woman's wooden basket, dusted off, but still old and still in existence, thankfully.

Hadn't she come to burn them? Or had she decided it was too much trouble after she had revealed her information and he had wanted to keep them anyway?

Christine. She had been such a mystery, but a beautiful, gentle, kind one. Now, though, he frowned. Her birth had been…unnatural. Who was her mother?

She was of woman born, the strange old woman had said, scowling into the fire. She was hatched. He shivered. Was it possible to craft a human through spells and enchantments? What if Christine was the product of alchemy, a science banned because of its violation of life's laws? What if she was really a transformed pile of odd materials and the borrowed life of some poor animal?

He shook his head and tried to clear his mind. He was getting ahead of himself. There had to be some explanation for the secrecy of the birth.

Why was he searching for answers about a dead woman, anyway? Was it to know and love someone already lost? Or had curiosity just taken over the rational side of his mind? There were too many questions.

He picked the stack of papers up, but it slipped from his fingers, splattering and folding on the dirt floor. A scrap of parchment, one newer and lighter than the other pages, fluttered out of the book and to the floor. He snatched it up, eagerly turning it over to read whatever it might hold. Had that infernal hag left him a note?

It was blank.

He turned it over again and looked for folds that might hide writing, but it was no use. It was blank, simply torn from some other page for use as a marker. A marker… He almost hungrily gathered up the journals from the ground and scanned the page it had opened to, the page where the marker had been placed. There must be something of importance here!

The page was scrawled with sketches of various drawings of a dragon, a slender and beautiful one, if a fire breathing, scaly monster could be called beautiful. The longer he looked at all the drawings, the more it seemed to him that they were drawn most meticulously, each line perfected and each shadow clear and obscuring all the same.

The neck of the beast was sinewy and strong, each muscle defined under a coat of fine, shimmering scales. Small, sharp spines ran down the length of its spine, and the wings were elegantly folded and conveniently covered its back like a cloak. Its limbs, too, were slender and streamlined, and every scale was inked with a radiant green and specks of gold. The spines and headdress of horns looked cream-colored and smooth. How hard and long did Gustave Daae work to perfect these? Why were they so special to him?

The man had obviously put special emphasis into the lighting of the pieces, each time positioning the head so that the light was to the right, glinting off wild, clear and black slit eyes. In fact, it seemed as if the light was constant in all the pictures, whether the dragon sat, stood, slept, flew, ate, or cradled an opalescent egg or jewel in its claws. Yes, this sort of beauty was different, but it was entrancing.

He could only have made the illustrations this detailed if he had time, and…not just his imagination, but also a model to base them off of. How did he spend so much time with one dragon? Did he come from one of those strange places where people breed, train, and sell the creatures? Perhaps Gustave Daae had been a world traveler before coming to town to raise his daughter- which led back to the question of how Christine had come to be in the world. Did he have a secret relationship with one of the women, who subsequently gave birth to the girl?

Well, I suppose the matchmaker is as good a place to start as any.

…

Nadir watched from a distance of several miles as the human Christine and Erik settled down to sleep again. It was one of his gifts as a Persian dragon, to perceive what happened far away though his eyes could not physically look. His reflecting pool did quite a good job of replacing a spyglass or an actual spy, and perhaps even better than the two aforementioned items.

Their bond was obviously special, with no known precedent, and he would know too, would he not? He was at least a good thousand years older than Erik, a decent age to be, as he was considered wise and constant to many humans. The odd bond between the dragon and the human girl was a close one, despite their short time together.

His keep eyes did not miss the slight shimmer along Christine's spine, and the way she was more graceful than most small, clumsy humans. Was she part elf, or perhaps faerie? It was possible, for some of the humanoid folk interbred freely without prejudice or shame, and left their excessively shiny marks on their offspring. If she was not fully human, that blood must have been diluted by several generations, at least.

It irked him slightly that he could not hear through the reflecting pool as well. He would have given one of his claws to hear what they were saying to each other. It also intrigued him that Christine should be allowed to sleep not only near the temperamental lizard, but also on him, resting on his side, leg, and tail. Nadir had known Erik for several centuries, and had never been allowed the slightest brush of hide in jest or otherwise. Maybe the rules and relations between them were different, because she was a different species.

Or maybe he was simply fond of her.

The thought was quite unsettling. Their bond was probably unhealthy, but as Nadir looked on, he glimpsed a definite affection in the black dragon's eyes. No, he would let them be happy for a little longer, at least until the council meeting. Erik deserved at least that much, after being put through so much in his comparatively short lifetime.

The meeting would likely be the end of the peculiar friendship.

…

Christine had closed her eyes and kept very still, but couldn't quite get comfortable lying on her back. It felt like the bumps and ridges of Erik's tail were digging into her spine. His leg and flank was decidedly more comfortable. Careful not to disturb him, she crawled a few feet away and stood, stretching and trying release the tension from her back. She bent forward and rolled her shoulders-

Her stretching froze mid-yawn as a strange itch sped down her spine. A night breeze cooled the area, which felt like strong vodka had been dripped down the line of her bones.

Long, empty feet away, Erik's eyes snapped open. The soft, muted splitting of skin was not a sound he usually heard in the night, not even with another creature sharing his residence. Christine? Are you hurt? He tasted the air for blood, but found none.

Her trembling voice replied: "N-no… At least, I- I think not."

Let me see. Is it a scrape, or have you broken aught?

"I know not- please, do not trouble yourself. Go back to sleep," she bid, close to tears and desperately hiding it. What strange and disturbing things were happening, that she should feel her skin part and feel no pain?

She scrabbled at the papery, slightly moist folds of split skin down the center of her back and felt bile rise in her throat as her mind rebelled against the idea of injury without sensation. It was simply not logical, and it made her afraid. Erik sensed her fear and did not go back to sleep as she had told him to.

He curled the end of his tail around her waist to steady her and turned her about, so he could see what was the matter. What is this? Christine at last let tears fall from her eyes, hugging herself as if to keep her sobs in.

"I do not know," she moaned despondently. "Am I dying? Am I ill with some magic sickness? Have I grown too fat for my skin?" she continued, almost hysterical. She dissolved into a fearing mess of

The dragon sniffed at the long ridge of bony spines that extended from the base of her skull to the tip of her tailbone, tapering at the ends in an almost graceful manner. It smelled odd, sharper and harsher than her usual scent; as if the dragon in it had been magnified, and the human diminished. Keep yourself within yourself, Christine. You are not dying, and you are most certainly not fat. You are a healer, and you should know at any rate that it is impossible to explode because of fat.

His harsh, grumpy voice shook her out of her crying, and she scrubbed at her damp cheeks. "I- then what is happening? Erik, tell me!" Her usually smooth voice cracked in desperation.

He looked again at the folds of skin that had seemingly peeled away from the hard protrusions. The words were stuck in his mind and for a moment, refused to emerge for his amazement. Never had he heard, read, or seen any phenomena such as this. Then quietly and nearly inaudibly, he said, Your spine is like mine now. I know nothing of happenings such as this, but- you appear to be turning into a dragon.