11 - Reptiles and River Otters

A/N: I know it's been a long while, but it's been a crazy year. I appreciate those of you who have been following the story. As you may know, I may go a long while sometimes, but I won't abandon a story altogether. Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate!

Oh. My.

Maira looked up. And up, and up, to the gleaming eyes of the beast standing on the beach below Cair Paravel.

A dragon. An actual, living, breathing, iridescent-green dragon, with wings that spread the width of the little strip of beach at which Maira and Rory had arrived.

Rory strode confidently across the sand, not realizing until several steps forward that Maira lagged behind. She paused to look back over her shoulder. "Maira?"

"I can't move," she said in a near whisper, ashamed of her fear when the princess made for the dragon so boldly.

"It's all right," Rory assured her. "Do you have the little bracelet I gave you?"

Maira did. Before they left for the beach, Rory had pressed a little leather bracelet into her hand. It bore a glass bead, inside of which was a filament of something Rory had told her was the barb—the tiniest bit—of a flying horse's feather. She held up her wrist now to show Rory that she'd put the bracelet on as instructed.

Rory nodded back. "Then you're perfectly safe. My Uncle Saris created those glass beads for Maddoken's friends. You can't be mesmerized by his stare even if he wanted to, as long as you wear it."

The dragon noticed them now. He angled his head round, gulping down the tail of what must have been an enormous fish. One eye gleamed, a color Maira couldn't possibly describe. The other was an empty socket with an old scar around the edges.

Maira went cold with fright and shrank back from the beast.

The dragon's mouth opened, revealing rows of sharp white teeth. His serpent tongue flicked against them. "Rory! Ssssso nice of you to visssssit."

Rory walked right up to the beast, easily two times the size of the largest horse she'd ever seen—and that was a monstrous creature at a fair, whose size rivaled the wagons. The dragon lowered its head, and without an ounce of trepidation, Rory hugged it around its toothy muzzle. "Hi, Madd. You've gotten bigger."

"A proper diet will do that," the dragon rumbled, raising his head again.

Rory grinned. "Are you staying on the beach now?"

"There'sssss a cave in the cliff round the bend," the dragon said, showing no signs of readiness to eat her, but Maira hung back anyway. "The dwarvesssss carved it out deeper for me."

"Thoughtful of them," Rory said. "I hope it's comfortable."

"I've had much worssssse accommodationsssss," the dragon said. He directed the stare of his intact eye at Maira, who felt a chill run down her back. "Who isssss your friend?"

Rory beamed. "Maddoken, meet Maira Singh, newly arrived to Narnia. Maira, meet Maddoken." She beckoned. "I promise you, he won't bite."

The dragon's tongue flicked out. Maira could have sworn a gleam of amusement entered that one color-shifting eye. "I promissssse, too," he said.

Maira crept forward, clenching her fists at her sides and absolutely unwilling to reach her hand out to that humongous creature.

A booming chuckle issued from deep in the beast's belly. "Timid little thing, eh?" He lowered his head.

Maira took a last, halting, sidelong step. At Rory's urging, she lifted a hand to the dragon's shining emerald muzzle. Her fingers shook madly.

The dragon pushed its nose against her palm.

Maira flinched, but the beast didn't move.

He was warm—sun-warm—with smooth, fine scales as buttery-soft as the kid leather she'd stitched for wealthy customers. His hide threw rainbows of its own in the reflected sunlight. The rumble of his muted laughter vibrated against her fingertips as he drew his head back. "Never touched a dragon before, then?"

"N-No," she admitted. "It's—nice to meet you, Maddoken." Uncertain of the protocol when meeting a heretofore mythical creature, she dipped her head and made a shallow, awkward curtsy. "Can you breathe fire?"

He opened his mouth in a booming laugh. "Ssssshe has a backbone, Rory. I like her." To Maira, he said. "Yesssss. All dragonsssss except water dragonsssss can do that from the time they're hatched."

"Water dragons," Maira repeated, and turned her gaze to the sea, stretching vast and shifting to the horizon. Instead of terror, she found herself searching in wonder for a serpentlike shape among the waves.

Narnia certainly was something to behold. Where in all this strange, vast world could Farhan be?

Well, she decided, there would clearly be no faster way to search than this. She turned back to the dragon, straightened her spine, and swallowed her fears.

"Madd," Rory asked, "would you mind giving us a ride? We're looking for Aedan."

"Of courssssse." The dragon settled onto its belly and lowered a wing. Maira saw a leather contraption around its chest and belly, a slim, fleece-padded thing like a large-scale saddle.

Rory leaped lightly onto the crook of Maddoken's wing. He folded it back to boost her into the saddle. Rory reached down to Maira. "Come on."

Madd lowered his wing again, angling his head to look at her with his good eye. "Come, little dragonet."

Flying—and on a dragon—all in one day. Maira kept the image of Farhan firm in her mind.

Maddoken opened his great leathery wings, then looked back over his shoulder. "Hold on tight. The first leap isssss a ssssshock."

He crouched, then whoosh—Maira felt her stomach dive so fast she couldn't even give a shout of surprise. Maddoken flapped once, twice, three, four times, and each surge upward threatened to slide her off. She threw her arms around Rory's waist. Maddoken leveled out, gliding low, but they were still higher up than Maira had ever been, including the time her father took her on London's ferris wheel for her birthday. Then, she'd squeezed her eyes shut. Her father laughed and told her she'd never make it as a sailor if she couldn't handle heights. She'd opened them, but when she spotted the Thames, reflecting sky, she had to shut them again.

This must be how Aedan felt on the train and in the motorcar. She'd never laugh about it again.

"How do you stay on?" she gasped out when she was sure her stomach wouldn't erupt.

"Grip with your knees, like a horse, and hold onto me," Rory called, "but oof, not that tight! Madd will never let you fall."

"I don't know how to ride horses," Maira said.

"Really? Do they not have horses in England?"

"Of course they do," Maira said, "but I'm only an apprentice cobbler. My family could never own a horse."

"Why not?"

Maira bit her lip. "We're poor."

Rory said nothing for a moment, but then reached down to give Maira's hand a squeeze. "You're rich in bravery, Maira Singh. I know you're going to be all right, whatever happens."

- # -

Farhan scrambled over a fallen log, then burst into sunlight almost at once.

He blinked in the glare, his eyes smarting after the dim light under the thick trees. "Voice?" he called as loud as he dared.

The voice that had been urging him on didn't answer, but he looked out from the edge of the forest over a low cliff, and the sun glittered on a wide ocean that stretched out so far, he felt very small.

Farhan trotted forward to the edge of the cliff. The bank was cut by a river emptying out into the ocean, and he spotted a rocky ledge running from the edge of the cliff to the place where the waters met.

He could climb down there, but where should he go after that? Maira wasn't here. Father wasn't here. None of his friends were here, and he was getting awful hungry. That man hadn't fed him. Farhan was used to finding food when his belly told him to, but nothing in the forest had been food.

He climbed down the ledge, an easy climb when he was used to scrambling around London in all sorts of ways. At the bottom was a narrow beach, and more forest beyond.

But no food.

Farhan trudged along the riverbank with his stomach rumbling. "Voice," he said, "I could really use something to eat." He looked hopefully across the river, but there were only more trees, none of them bearing food that he could see.

But what there was, was a pair of otters. Huge otters, standing on the bank and bickering with one another in perfectly understandable English. Farhan stared.

One of the otters noticed him and reared up onto its hind legs. "Hullo there! Lost, are you?"

"Don't go 'hullo-ing' him," growled the second otter. "I've only got so much fish, and it's awfully close to lunchtime to be meeting someone without offering them a bite. I don't feel like sharing today."

"Oh, pish," said the first one. "You're only saying that because you're terrible at fishing. Never seen a worse fisher, for an otter. Hullo, I said!"

"Hullo?" Farhan called back.

"Come and join us for lunch," it said. "Never mind what my brother says, the greedy old curmudgeon. Come and eat. Plenty to go around."

Farhan took a hesitant step toward the bank. He'd never seen such giant otters. They came up to his waist!

The second otter threw his paws in the air. "Come, come, human, before I change my mind. You can cross using the stones just here." He pointed—if an otter could be said to point—his paw at a flat row of stones crossing the gentle river. "I suppose Pebble's right."

"Of course I'm right," said Pebble, affronted. "You don't know but that he's related to the Pevensies, being human and all."

"They aren't all Pevensies just because they're human, fish-for-brains," the second otter said. "We're just between Narnia and Archenland, so why isn't he one of them Archen folk, just as easy?"

Farhan picked his way across the stones, balancing on the slippery surfaces. The river murmured past in a lazy sort of way. "I'm not any of that," he said. "I'm from London."

The second otter put its paws on its hips—if an otter could be said to have hips. "See there, Pebble? London. Maybe that's in Telmar."

"That's in England," Farhan said as he set foot on the bank.

The second otter's eyes went round. "Well-l-l-l, now. Might be you are a Pevensie."

"I'm not a … whatever that is … but I am lost, and I'm hungry, too."

Pebble's whiskers bristled. "See? He's hungry. You might be a stingy old grouch, Glimmer, but your eyes are always bigger than your stomach. We have piles of fish."

"Your idea of a pile and my idea of a pile are two very different things," said Glimmer. "Anyway," he said to Farhan, "you're here now, so I suppose we've got to feed you or be labeled rude by the rest of the lodge all up and down Glasswater Creek." He dropped back down to all fours. "Come on, now, and we'll get you something to eat."

Pebble scuttled along beside him. Farhan had to hurry to keep up. "After you eat, we'll take you to Thane Mulberry."

"Who's that?" asked Farhan.

"Oh, he's the big to-do in these parts," Glimmer said. "He'll help you find where you're going, London or no London."

Farhan was certain he'd never had a stranger talk with anyone, but he followed the otters, his belly growling its approval with every step.