The sun was in full tyranny mode, and my thighs were chafing.
We trudged down a road that was more dust than stone, no village in sight, just the occasional dead crow and a lot of nothing. The Dragon walked ahead, tail swaying in that arrogant arc like he owned the horizon. He was in a mood, or maybe just hungry. Hard to tell. Either way, I needed distraction.
So I started talking. As always.
“You know,” I said, pulling a bit of twine from my pocket and playing with it, “back in Seebulba, every girl had at least one.”
He didn’t turn. Just rumbled, “One what?”
“One man who said he’d save her.”
Still nothing.
I kept going. “There’s always so soft-eyed rchant’s son, or a bored noble slumming it, or a pious drunk who sees divinity in your thighs. They all say the sa thing—‘I’ll co back for you.’ ‘I’ll buy out your contract.’ ‘I’ll make you my kept woman, my bride, my secret treasure.’ Blah blah blah.”
“You forgot ‘goddess among mortals,’” the Dragon muttered.
“Oh, that one’s standard,” I said. “Usually cos with a poem. Or a rash.”
He snorted.
I grinned, warming up. “There was Juleth, the gouty baron. Swore on his oaths he’d marry after his third wife died. Then there was Torin—the spice heir. Made swear to et him at the harbor. I waited in my nicest dress. He ran off with Fla from across the alley. She had better tits, to be fair.”
“I thought you hated sentint,” the Dragon said.
“I do,” I said automatically. “Now.”
He looked back at . Briefly. Just long enough to raise a scaly brow. Then kept walking.
I sighed and kicked a pebble. “But when you’re working the docks, the bathhouses, the cathouses… you hope. That’s the trap. You hear stories. That one that knew that one who got married off to a traveling bard. That girl from the Red Sand brothel who caught a warlord's eye and now wears eralds and sleeps on furs. That cousin of a cousin who got bought by a lonely prince and now lives in a tower and reads books.”
“Lies,” the Dragon said flatly.
“Of course they are. But we passed them around like candy. Sweet and bad for your teeth.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “And you believed them?”
“Once,” I said. “Just once.”
Silence.
I kicked another rock. “He had dimples. And a laugh that made you feel like maybe the world wasn’t a shithole. Said he’d co back with a carriage. Said he’d marry in secret. Said I was his escape.”
“And?”
I shrugged. “I waited all day. Even packed a little bag. The madam laughed so hard she pissed herself.”
He didn’t say anything.
I smiled, but it was the tight kind. The kind that tastes like copper. “So I stopped waiting. Stopped believing. Took what I could, when I could. Learned how to smile pretty and steal faster. And if soone whispered ‘I’ll save you,’ I whispered ‘pay first.’”
We walked a while. Just the crunch of road and the occasional flap of his wing to swat flies.
Then I said, “I think all of us, down in the sweat and silk, we had to make a choice. Either keep waiting for so hero, or beco our own.”
He glanced sideways. “You think you’re a hero now?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m the only one who ca back for .”
Another silence.
Then: “You’re also a terrible cook.”
I laughed. “See? That’s why I keep you around. To humble .”
“You’re welco,” he said.
And we kept walking.
The dust behind us, the road ahead.
No hero in sight.
Just .
And my dragon.
Which, frankly, was better.
User Comments
0 comments from readers