Lost Change

Chapter 72

"Nate, come here." I paused from sniffing the strange plant and took to the air. A few flaps was all it took to get back to Minna, and I perched on her hand. She pet me on my back, then lifted her hand towards her shoulder. "Up."

I hopped up on her shoulder and got another stroke over my back. We had spent all day practicing tricks as we walked through the city - for the most part she had simply followed behind me and let me go where I wanted, though she did steer us away from one section of the city that I suspected held the market with the shia fruits - and I had apparently mastered those commands to the point that they no longer earned me a sunburst berry or shia fruit slice. The pets were nice, although she was starting to space those out too.

Minna glanced at her tablet and tapped some buttons on it. We were still playing with the disk - once she had felt sure I would come back when called she had started letting me fly around off the leash, which had given her more places to hide the thing without me seeing - but she had added new games to it, as part of teaching me new tricks. I glanced around and saw the disk laying in plain sight a few paces away, which made me sigh internally. I hated this trick.

"Stay." Minna spoke with a warning tone and tapped one more button. The disk spun... and a second later, the delicious scent of a fresh, perfectly ripe shia fruit wafted into the air. The scent was incredible. The fruit was begging to be eaten, it was practically crying out to every nerve in my nose to let me know how delicious, how sweet, how juicy it was...

I made it all of ten seconds before I launched off Minna's shoulder and flew towards the disk. I knew Minna wanted me to stay on her shoulder, I knew I would get a sunburst berry or a shia fruit if I stayed, and I knew that I wouldn't get anything at all for messing up the command... but the smell of a shia fruit so close to me was impossible to resist.

And I also knew that Minna hadn't given me enough slack on the leash to actually reach the disk.

I jerked in the air as I ran out of leash. I tried flapping a few more times to get closer to the scent, but Minna's hand kept the leash in place. I wheeled around and dropped to the ground, landing about halfway between Minna and the scent of delicious fruit.

I clawed uselessly at the pavement and tried to get closer, but the yellow leash remained impervious to my tugs. I turned around and tried to chew through the stupid thing, but that proved just as useless as it always did. Finally I just dropped to my belly and stared at the disk while it taunted me with the undeniable smell of shia fruit.

I was disappointed in myself, but dragonet instincts around food were just that powerful. Minna sighed in disappointment and tapped something on her tablet. The disk closed, and the scent faded away. "No."

That word, and Minna's sigh of disappointment, were sounds I was rapidly coming to hate hearing. They made me feel a little sad each time I heard them, especially when I knew I was the reason. That touched on a level of dragonet instincts almost as strong as the pull of food, and worked together with my human nature - I had disappointed a friend. It wasn't a good feeling for either part of me. I dropped my ear tufts and whined.

"Don't worry. When you stay, then you can have some; you just can't get it by ignoring me." Minna mistook the cause of my sadness for the disappearance of the scent, and leaned down to lift me back up to her shoulder. "Stay."

I sat still on her shoulder. This would earn me a tiny sliver of a sunburst berry in a little bit - it was easy to do without the smell of the shia fruit distracting me. And it was helping, at least a little - the first time I had only made it two seconds before I had gone tearing after the disk, so Minna's methods were working.

I told the part of me that was still uncomfortable and embarrassed that this training would at least give me the willpower to resist being lured into awkward situations because of treats. But it still felt like I was being treated like a petulant child who needed to learn better.

We waited like that for about thirty seconds or so, then Minna held up her hand and revealed a sliver of a sunburst berry. I waited - that was part of the 'trick', too, and sunburst berries were easier to resist - and after a few more seconds Minna said, "Good job. Take it." I leaned forward and took the fruit, and when I had finished it Minna held up a fist.

I hopped onto her fist and spread out my wings for balance, but I stayed perched where I was. I had learned that if I waited for 'permission', then she would... there. The leash made a click sound as Minna released it from the harness. "Go on."

I jumped up into the air and glided back to the strange plants I had been looking at earlier. It was an unfamiliar plant that the blood memories told me came from another world, but it had an interesting smell. For some reason it reminded me of bacon. The Kymari had planted them in the small garden area we had come to, and there were dozens of them for me to examine. I picked one of the smaller ones and landed on the ground near it.

The savory scent filled my nostrils as I leaned into the blue flower and inhaled deeply.

I suppose the part of me that had been worried had actually turned out to be right. These past few days hadn't exactly been dignified. I had flown around on a leash and done tricks for treats. I had learned to set out on command and learned to come back when I was called. I was learning to stay, and for all I knew I would be learning to fetch, roll over, and beg next.

I was discovering new instincts my dragonet body had, ones I hadn't been aware of while I had lived on my own with Susie, but which drew me closer to Minna. And yes, they left me frighteningly helpless in a way that still bothered me.

But... those things didn't really matter. The other part inside had also been right. Ivy had been right. This was where I belonged now. Doing those things was fun. Far more fun than anything I could be doing out in the wild. They made Minna happy, and that made me happy. Being with Minna made me happy, and her companionship was meeting a need inside me that had gone unfulfilled since I had become a dragonet.

And I could see similar instincts and feelings awakening in her. Complimentary instincts that pushed her to protect me and care for me. Feelings that would ensure I was too important to her to risk abusing me. A love that meant she wouldn't try to humiliate me or push me to do things that were degrading, not unless it was absolutely necessary.

I pushed away the shrinking feelings of worry and inhaled deeply from the flower. I savored the scent for another moment or two, then flew back towards Minna with my curiosity satisfied. She didn't go far when she let me off the leash - I think she was still nervous about me leaving, or of something happening to me, and I suspected she used the tracker in my flank to make sure she stayed near even when I was too far away to see - so it was always easy to catch up with her.

She was kneeling beside another one of the bacon-scented plants, and was scattering dirt over the disk. I knew she had seen me sniffing the plant earlier, so I assumed she was trying to throw me off with the flower's scent.

I flew quietly up onto a tree branch above her and stretched out to watch her hide the disk from me.

After another minute or two of work she straightened up and brushed the dirt off her hands. She took a few steps away from the half-buried disk and pulled the tablet from her pocket. She tapped it and frowned, then looked around with a confused expression.

Ha! So she is keeping tabs on me.

I leaned a little closer and chirped down at her. "Boo."

Minna jumped a little and glanced up at the tree I was in. She recovered from her surprise and sighed... then she laughed. "Were you watching me hide that? Cheater."

I blinked down at her as if I didn't have the slightest clue what she was talking about.

She grinned at me, then knelt down and picked the disk up out of the dirt. She brushed off some of the leaves and dirt, then slid it and the tablet back into her pocket, before straightening back up to hold her hand out in a fist. "Come here." I flew back, and she moved me up to her shoulder before petting me on the back. "I guess that's enough practice for now. Let's take a break and see how you do around the market." She clipped the leash back to my harness and started up the path and back into the city.