After being discovered on the battlefield, Dragon has to run for his life. He finds his old friend, Bear, and a new companion, Rat. With Bear's strength and Rat's brains, they decide to take up the course of freeing the beast people, better known as...
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I hurried to Rat's side and touched Dragon's face. As soon as my hand touched his big scaly maw he changed to a human. He is cold! "Rat, there are furs in the box and wood for a fire."
She hurried to the box and pulled the furs out. She brought them over and covered him with them.
Picking up Dragon I could feel how cold he was through the furs. I moved him to a large flat stone near where he landed that had a small alcove in the base. It looked like some human had built it for something. Rat brought the wood for me and I piled it up in the alcove.
I looked up from my work and saw Rat getting under the furs with him. "What are you doing?" I asked her.
"The fire will take a little while to warm the stone. He will get colder before it gets warm so I'm going to warm him up with my body heat." As she answered me, her face changed shape, and she became her inner beast.
I frowned walking to the box and grabbing my flint and knife. Sure she wants to just warm him up, nothing more! I dragged the knife across the flint aggressively and sparks flew. A fire caught the kindling and the warmth was growing from the small flame as the wood court. What have I got messed up in this time? Maybe my mother was right when she told me Dragon would get me in trouble.
"Bear? Why are you scowling at the fire?"
I looked up at Rat. "Nothing really, just thinking about what my mother said to me about Dragon. She told me he would get me into trouble, and well, here we are."
Rat smiled and shook her head. "Dragon didn't mean to Bear."
"Any more than you meant to trip over him?"
She sighed. "I tipped over my tail not him."
The image of that made me laugh. Now that the fire was taking off I walked back to the cart. I set myself the task of setting up camp. Pulling the makeshift tent out of the box I looked for a place to put it up. Not finding a better spot I anchored it to the rocks with a heavy hammer I kept for this purpose.
Once it was up, then I sat down to watch Rat stroke Dragon's hair from his face and tend to his wound. She is caring for him well. This was a stupid idea! He's wounded and him flying all this way was always going to hurt him. I pulled out some furs and a tool kit to work on them while I thought.
Rat walked over to me while I worked. "He's warming up now."
"Good." I said feeling grumpy.
"Are all Bear's this grumpy?"
"They are when moved from their cave this close to the cold months."
She nodded looking serious. "I'm sorry for bringing you trouble." She sounded hurt when she spoke makeing my temper cool.
I turned to look at her. "Why are you sorry?" I asked softly.
She sighed and sat near me. "A group of people came to my village talking about a Dragon and then I morphed. That's why there are so many humans out here. They think there are a lot of us out here now."
