Warning: Contains dragon hoard, less cruelty to minors than average, and consensual carnal matters.
—
Silver scales; red blood; and the mad mage's noises about roasting dragon heart and burning your thumb with three drops of fat to hear the tongues of birds and gain in wisdom. Montaron went around carefully and methodically exploring the lair, hunting down the pair of small dragonets that tried to bite him. Adalon's nest was made of what looked like elven silk spun into a cradle for her younglings, but the only treasure there was a large silver ring the creatures twirled around their snouts.
"Oh, what came from her eggs, Monty— Bad little dragon! Bad little dragon! I'll...er, take care of them—"
In stories of dragonslaying they never said how much the blood started to burn on you after a while. Adalon kept dragon-sized warm springs for herself to the back of her lair; he stopped searching for a moment and cleaned himself up as if he was Viconia. His and Xzar's transmutations still held on, though they should fade in short order after the dragon's death. He plucked a shard of mirror out of his upper arm and threw it in the water, skipping it six times before it sunk for good. No chance of rebuilding the thing, the mad mage said; just as well.
"It gives us fair warning to take precautions against those possibilities, some in particular," Viconia said haughtily, and he was roughly inclined to agree with her.
In the long lair were walls, passages, and a few spots that couldn't have been walked through by Adalon in her usual size, though they were still vast. Dragons shapechanged, they said. Check the depth of the walls and make sure it all added up; hunt for loose tiles or bits that seemed significantly more or less scuffed than the surrounding; think where the worm'd fit herself in most often. He levered a dagger into a white tile to check that one.
The mad mage flitted about with a pair of silver moths flying around his shoulders, brushing light dust on his skin where they touched him in their flutterings. "But we're no fit caretakers for transmuted young dragons, Monty. Better find a small glass aquarium and put it over their heads and leave them where the surface forest-singers can find them. Oh, and empty out all the water first. That would be a good idea. Would some dragons collect silver goldfish under glass? Once there was a dragon whose collection was gold and ruby and silver and emerald butterflies, rare ones too from Chult and Maztica, all stretched out on diamond-tipped pins below glass, wherein a maidenly prince rescued said dragon from a rogue princess... If I cook the dragon's heart, Monty, will you have some?"
"I don't eat anything that can talk back, freak," Montaron said.
"All the more for me." Xzar hummed his way back to where he was supposed to be stripping the body, the silver moths still floating around him.
The tile turned out to be none but normal. Had to be a hoard, or they'd have spilt their blood and sweat for nothing. Not a damned thing; but...the idea that they were good enough for bloody dragons to fall down and die facing them, perhaps. Besides, the scales were worth something.
The noble-good bloody likes of Adalon were the type to collect butterflies just to spite the ones who went to all the trouble of killing them, Montaron thought. Or maybe plants from rare elven forests of Toril, all lined up in a pretty blooming underground flower-garden full of utter uselessness and sweet scents. Or wine, perhaps, for dragons who put on the noble shine-my-claws polish-my-arse-scales airs. He marched around a set of lower caves, hunting through the rocks by another branch of the hot springs.
"In here, slave," Viconia called, the voice low and satisfied, and he chased after it. There was a cave that would've been the next part he'd looked into. It was long and low with a deep pit in the ground, the stone smoothed out like granite-finishings as if by ice or scale-scrapings. And in the pit was what had to be the dragon's hoard, silvery platinum coin and gold and silver, cut jewels in scarlet fire and azure and peacock green clashing together and clanking across each other, and rising out of it were Viconia's naked shoulders. She reached a bare arm for a crystal wineglass by the side of the pit, and drank dark red of some aged vintage from a dusty bottle nearby. She raised her slim neck in her bath of jewels, white hair loose and free behind her.
Montaron swallowed. "Ye've done me in at least two ways, woman."
She raised a smooth-skin leg slowly upward from the bath, gold and silver and diamond clinking from her skin. "Come and join me, if you will. Off with your clothes, male."
You never thought of it in advance when it came to the notion of swimming in wealth, but jewels and metals were cold and hard and sharp-edged. It was about six feet deep, Montaron reckoned, six wide in diameter; adding up to ransom fit for a king. No, he'd an idea Viconia wouldn't find that flattering. He pushed his way to her through the gemstones, treading beljuril underfoot and watching her rise like a siren above gold and jewels. She grabbed him by the hair.
"Wine?" Viconia said sweetly, sipping at her goblet with her right hand. He reached for her flesh. Alive, killed a gods-damned dragon, by Mask, about time for this—
She dragged him below the pile of gold, all but pulling his scalp free. His hands scrabbled along her thighs for purchase, where she sat comfortably enough on a ledge of smoothed rock. Her nails nested in his skin and her plans for the evening had been clear all along as she drew him into her lap.
Viconia arched her back and cried out, trying to take chunk of hair off him all the while, savage as always. She poured droplets of the wine between her breasts, cascading over her stomach and below to where she wanted him licking it up.
She fell back, claiming not to be tired; women endured. "Mm, slave. Enough for now." She toyed with gemstones. By her side above her glass lay overturned.
She was far warmer than the jewels; he idly left his hands on her. Four beljurils cascaded from her hand at once in a glittering waterfall. "And where to, after this?" she said, heavy-lidded.
"Deep gnomes'll want to come after us," Montaron reminded. No need to wipe out the village. Or if the surface-elves ever got wind...well, no reason to borrow trouble. No reason for any of the mirror to be true, in the end.
Viconia laughed as if she knew perfectly well it was a small matter. "Do you know, I think the mad mage draws closer to become a wizard of true power. And I a high priestess, of course."
"Well? And where would ye plan to go?" He patted a knee.
Viconia's hand snaked around his shoulders and caught his neck; he could have left it, but it was pleasant. Almost familiar. "Wherever we wish."
—
Note: A dragon with a butterfly collection is in Simon Green's Forest Kingdom series, by utter coincidence of course. ;)