I am Dragon (Dragon Fires Rising Book 2) by Marc Secchia (famous ebook reader TXT) 📕

serpents were twenty to thirty feet long, powerful and muscular, with a long, flexible dorsal fin and other pairs of fins along the body. They tore into the corpse of a Sanbris Whale. Their grotesquely elongated front fangs flashed in the water as they wrestled each other to rip choice portions of the meal. Feeding frenzy! No love lost here. Even from a height, Dragon could sense the bestial hungers that drove these creatures to feed so voraciously.

“I hate to remind you, Dragon, but we’ve a breakfast invite with the leaders of Hamirythe.”

“Aye. We should return. Sea Serpents look charming. The tales have them up to five times bigger. Can’t wait to meet their grand-sires.”

As the cliffs rose again above the waves in the distance, she said, “How do you shake it off, Dragon?”

“Shake it off?”

“The guilt.”

“Oh, like a wingtip shake? I see … I don’t know. Maybe … maybe you brush up on your evil Princess laugh?”

She must think him awfully strange.

After a moment, she teased, “Don’t you mean your evil Dragon laugh?”

“No, let me hear your best evil Princess impression. Mwaa-haa-harr!”

“Dragon, I do not do evil Princess! I am always polite.”

“I’ve seen how polite you are with a Dragon bow in hand, or hurling flaming oil bombs into enemy ranks. Every self-respecting Dragon Rider Princess needs a wicked laugh. Come on. I can’t hear you. No more protests, Highness. Action.”

She said, “Alright, then. Mwaa-haa … I feel stupid.”

“You do sound like a mosquito. From the belly, with full expression.”

“Mwaa-haa-harr?”

“More gusto – BRAAA-HAA-HARRR! See? Let it ring!”

“Braa-haa … ha ha ha … this isn’t working.”

Dragon snorted, “Pathetic. Try again – no, pretend you’re gargling splinters of glass in your throat. Let it rasp. Imagine you’ve snuck into Prince Floric’s bedchamber late at night, and you want to put the fear of Dragons into him. You’re going to scare him so badly, he will hide in his castle for the rest of his life and never look at another Princess again.”

“Dragon!” she giggled. “Oh, alright. Mwaa-harr-hargh!”

“Not bad.”

“Gnarr-harr-hargh-arrrgh!”

“Made me shiver, that one. Come on, you pint-sized pirate. Louder!”

Raising her fists to the sky, she roared, Mwaa-harr-harr!

MWAA-HAA-HA-HARGH!!

“Listen to this one – gnrrr-hrrr-HARGH!”

“I do believe you are now able to impersonate an evil Princess. Congratulations.”

“Thank you for the lesson, Dragon. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

* * * *

Ruling a kingdom was wildly overrated. Boring! After a frightfully dull day marked by frightfully dull chatter with people who were, in the main, frightfully dull, Dragon whisked his Princess into the blue yonder for a much-needed breath of fresh air. She practised her wicked laugh.

Developing nicely.

Dragon gave his best window-rattling thunder upon departing, and had the distinction of many people running into the streets to wave their fists impotently at the sky as he winged off.

Ah, she might struggle with wickedness, but he had it built right into his five Dragon hearts.

Flying up to the mansion, they kidnapped Yarimda and coasted down to the nearest beach. She was desperately weak and sick, but being herself, she had a few definitive requirements. One was to walk barefoot in the sand. A little sleight of paw allowed her to at least pretend, even if she was taking almost none of her own weight. The next request was to swim. Much, much easier. He simply floated her upon his paw, and the natural buoyancy of water did the rest.

Azania stripped down and had a swim too. The luminous waters were as warm as ever, but Dragon spied the non-wavelike curves of a couple of large azure Sea Serpents lurking not far offshore. Busy waters. Greedy maws.

Dipping his muzzle into the water, Dragon experimented with spurting his fire. Despite that he knew it worked from exactly one prior experience, fighting off carnivorous fish in the Skaggar River, he was surprised how well it performed. White fire bloomed beneath the water in a long bubbling jet, all of fifty feet – less distance than in the air, but still a respectable effort in his ever so humble opinion.

Oh, fine. Strut that pride, Dragon!

His Princess agreed. “Excellent effort. Did I see you drinking some seawater as well? Was that for the salt?”

“Aye. I feel I needed it,” he said. “Don’t know why.”

“Freshly salted Dragon?” she smiled.

“I’m so insalted.”

“Don’t get your tang in a knot, now.” He waggled his tongue. She chortled, “Exactly. My puns keep getting worse, don’t they?”

“Aye, conversation should not be too liberally salted –”

“With de-salt-ory comment?”

Sharp.

After returning Yarimda to the beach, Dragon collected driftwood and built her a roaring fire so that she did not get cold. While she and Azania sat watching the suns dip beyond the ocean, chatting non-stop, he tried to learn how to take off from the water without kicking off the bottom with his paws.

Failure.

≈Wavewhisperer? Wavewhisperer, come.≈

This was the limit of his vocabulary this day, even though he tried numerous times. Was he trying too hard? Why if some words came naturally, did others not follow?

He had no answers.

One could only hope that Yarimda was right. Perhaps the ocean alone knew. He begged the very waves to rise to his calling, and fetch an old friend to bear her to her final rest.

* * * *

After tarrying in Hamirythe as long as they could, Dragon and Princess took their leave of their friends. The aching in his hearts was every ounce as weighty and poignant as he had imagined.

For Chalice and Yardi, the promise was to see them again. For Yarimda … the outpouring of his grief became so strong, he misplaced the ability to speak.

It was she who spoke to him in a whisper, as he leaned close, “I have played my part, Dragon, and lived a good life.