Dragonsbane

Arianna Spills the Beans

       It didn’t take long for Jaydon to meet them at the Inn (He hadn’t really left- he had made one last stop at the bakery).Arianna didn’t wake up the whole rest of the day. Neither did she get up the day after. Jaydon and Ralem stayed in the Inn for a while, waiting for her to wake, so they could talk to her. Ralem sat on the bed, where he awaited news from a maid on Arianna’s well-being in the room across from them. Jaydon, who had recently came up from having his breakfast, (which was more pie) was pacing the room. He didn’t like staying in one place long and was getting restless with waiting in the room, with Ralem just sitting on the bed, brooding over who knows what. He had been that way since he came back with Arianna, saying nothing, giving the briefest explanation. That was all the angry Jaydon could get from him when he stormed in the night before.

       Finally Jaydon broke the silence, “I’m going back out.” He crossed the room to make his escape, but was stopped when Ralem said, “Wait.” Jaydon turned around, wondering if Ralem was going to finally spit out what had been on his mind since Arianna came. Of course Jaydon knew he could find out what Ralem was thinking about, but the look on Ralem’s face had stopped him from intruding.

       Ralem looked up, his eyes full of hurt, “Remember when you said that you had given me protection? I didn’t know this ‘protection’ would turn me into a monster. The way Arianna looked at me when I’d…” he let the sentence die as he stared disbelievingly at his hands.

      “What do you mean by monster?” Jaydon said, for the word was a sensitive subject to him. He was also taken aback by the emotions emanating off his Rider.

      “I mean, when I was fighting those knights, I just got so mad I did something. I’m not sure. But I pushed him, and I didn’t even touch him. And Arianna is scared of me now. She thought I was a vampire.”

      Jaydon immediately sat down; his startling eyes alight with wonder. “I didn’t know I’d given you that much protection. Here, try to fend off this breeze.” The dragon raised his hands and cords of light zigzagged across his eyes as he called up the air around him and focused it on Ralem.

       “Don’t,” Ralem said, annoyed at Jaydon’s sudden fascination.

       “Try to stop the wind,” Jaydon repeated, making the air swirl around Ralem’s head, raising his hair straight up and tickling his face like feathers.

      Ralem swatted the air in a vain attempt to stop it, earning a chuckle from Jaydon, who increased the wind speed around Ralem. Ralem was really not in the mood to be pushed around by his dragon. “Just stop it,” he almost yelled, pushing back in his frustration. He sent the wind back so hard that Jaydon fell off his seat. The dragon sat on the ground, his eyes wide in surprise.

       “That’s what I mean,” Ralem said miserably, his head in his hands, “I don’t know what happened back there. I went crazy, everything faded into a red mist. I was so… angry. Like I was almost hungry for bloodshed. And then I killed them. So many of them. Gone. I’m becoming a monster.” At the last statement, he slumped forward, like a man defeated in battle.

       Jaydon looked him over as if seeing him for the first time. He slid onto the bed, “That is what happens to dragons when they are protecting their nest, Rider, or their mate. I don’t know what it’s called, but it makes you so mad…” he shook his head incredulously, “I know how it feels like, because when you were hurt in that fight, I could have rendered an army to toast. You don’t really know what you’re doing when you get mad like that.”

       “But I’m not a dragon,” Ralem said drily.

       “Well maybe not, but since you became a Rider you have a little bit of dragon in you. And why I have a little bit of human in me.” He pushed himself off the floor , “And dragons fall in love with their mate at first sight, the males anyway…. I think you have something going for Arianna,” Jaydon said, raising an eyebrow.