How I Met Hena Chakelithp

Chapter 6. Hena Meets Arvern

Hena and Arvern and I were riding our dragons toward the square. Hena and I rode Kudika. We couldn't ride Staliku because he's my soul dragon and can't be ridden by anyone else. Arvern rode his soul dragon, a moon dragon named Yuria.

"Anything you need, Arvern?" I said.
"Nope. I'm pretty much fine. Varnith's got everything covered."
"Good. How is she?"
"She unearthed a few stone carvings of Cheeliad and Seloh, but I think Kudika's gold vase was better."
"What is all that?" asked Hena."Who's Varnith?"
"My older sister," Arvern explained. "She's sixteen. She works with Kudika and has a temperature dragon named Spring Ka."
"And Cheeliad and Seloh are gods of life." I added.
"The gods and goddesses in our religion are Cheeliad and Seloh, Valiara, the goddess of love, Aravis, the goddess of time, Chalasta, the god of the elements, and Heplimah, the god of peace, family, and friends," Arvern said.
Hena nodded. "So how much money you need? How many menzels?"
"What are menzels?" I asked. I had no idea what menzels were.
"Oh, do you use a different currency here? In my country we use menzels."
"Oh, right." Arvern smiled. "We use crajas here."
"And bolesh," I said. "One craja is a hundred bolesh."
"But how many crajas do you need?" Hena asked.
"A bag of flax costs seven crajas. I already have five crajas and eighty-four bolesh. We only need one craja and sixteen bolesh."
"What?" Hena looked outraged. "That little for a bag of flax? In my country it's twelve menzels!"
"Well, menzels must equal a lot less than crajas then," I said. "If seven crajas equal twelve menzels... Wait, how much is it for, say, an iron shovel?"
"Oh, about six menzels."
"Well in our country it's four crajas."
"Yeah," Arvern said. "Crajas are probably just more than bolesh."
"I guess that makes sense." Hena smiled. She had a surprisingly pretty smile.

We arrived at the town square. We asked our dragons to stay where they were.
"Yo, Dev!" Arvern yelled. Dev was Arvern's friend who ran a food cart that sold fried smelts and roasted ribs. He was tall and lanky with scraggly black hair. I had known him since I was in school. He always looked like he hadn't taken a bath for weeks. He had a very crude sense of humor. I didn't like him much, but he could cook ribs better than anyone else I knew.
"Arvern!" Dev yelled back. "C'mere!
" 'Course," Arvern said, running toward the food cart, which was called "Meatstuffs". He and Dev talked awhile, using bad language and elbowing each other at an alarming frequency.
I whispered under my breath to Hena, "Boys."
I'd only known her for a few days, but she was starting to take down her shy-girl exhibit and reveal her true character.
Hena giggled and whispered back, "I have someone I know back home who was mean to my friends and me," Hena said. "He was insensitive and crude, and he walks around like this." She slouched her back, stuck her jaw out, and furrowed her brow. She walked around and made "Duh buh fuh guh" sounds. I giggled back.
She straightened up again. "Tielle and I passed notes to each other in class making fun of him, but we knew he'd never find out because he couldn't read."
I cracked up.
Arvern returned. We walked up to the center of the square. People who knew and liked my music leaned against poles and sat on the grass. I spoke up.
"Hi," I said to them. "Today we have a new musician. Her name is Hena. She's from another country called Pastrona. She plays an instrument from her country. It's called the dernia." She held up the wooden flute. A few people clapped. I set my open tilbarn case on the ground. With Arvern's beat, we began to play.
By the time we stopped, an entire layer of coins had filled the bottom of the case. Two were copper coins. One copper coin equals a craja. In total we made three crajas and seventy-three bolesh. We split the money between us. I got some, Arvern got some. Hena got some too, but she only wanted a little, since she wasn't going to be here long.
We walked off the stage and over to Dev's cart. Arvern and I bought a slab of beef ribs to share. Hena turned them down. She told us she didn't eat cow meat because she had a pet ox named Sengal. She bought fried smelts instead. Arvern and I devoured our beef ribs, enjoying their savoury, salty seasoning. That was the one reason I personally respected Dev: you don't get food like that anywhere else.
I said goodbye to Arvern. Hena and I went into the store.
There were shelves and shelves of everything. Everything, from sacks of sugar to iron bars to cloth dyes that cost ten crajas an ounce. I bought a bag of flax from the kind lady at the counter. I'd known her for a long time. She was good-natured and red-cheeked. She complimented Hena's pale skin, calling her a "porcelain beauty from an exotic land" when she learned that Hena was from another country.
As we flew home, Hena rode very sloppily, as she always had. Kudika kept asking her to stop pulling her scales out. Although it was clear that she was trying to be polite, it was even clearer that Hena was really frustrating her. Hena kept apologizing profusely, but Kudika remained grumpy. As soon as we were home, Hena went inside immediately to find a new book to read, and Staliku retired to the stables to rest after carrying me along with a large sack of flax all that way.
Kudika, my other dragon, however, had only had to carry Hena, who was still quite thin and weighed much less than I did. Kudika had not been carrying as much as Staliku, although she looked ten times more tired than he.
We lingered outside for no apparent reason. Kudika seemed very grouchy. When she was sure everyone else had gone, she spoke to me in the dragon language.
"Srarori, Hena's really getting on my nerves," she said, little static shocks puffing from her nostrils as she let out a "humph" at the very end.
"I can tell," I said, not making an effort to contain my hostility. Kudika had been sullen toward Hena all day, and I wasn't pleased.
"What do I do about it?"
I sighed. "Just try to be nice, okay? She's never ridden a dragon before."
"Seems like she's never ridden anything before," Kudika muttered as she flapped her wings and flew, unencumbered by the likes of Hena, to the stables.

Author's note: If you need an image of Srarori, I found one on GI and photoshopped it to look like her.

I suck at Photoshop, I know. You don't need to tell me.