Dragon Mind

12

I had sank my lower fangs back into my tongue as soon as I could on the fleid. Dimitri and I had gone all out, the pain that echoed over my right side told me just how much I had failed to keep my guard up. The white haired man in question had made himself at home on my old feather bed that still had a proud spot on the other side of the room. I glared at him from my own bed. If I had my top fangs I would be barring them in a hiss at him by now but they had not grown back in. In fact I had not been able to bare them since all those years ago. Mother had not been happy when two of her maids had died trying to take my food away.

None the less his breath had hissed through his own teeth when he had lowered himself onto the matress. My younger more childish side had wanted to mock him for it but the older prouder part of me was still upset at the first battle loss in four years. We had not said anything to each other upon return to the room. Me, being the sore loser I was, had curled into my bed and glared in slience. The older, wiser man had taken my angry slience for what it was hurt pride and had made himself at home with one of my books. The dire wolves had made a point to take turns glaring at him as well, though Kiki the brown one had slipped in a few growls just for good measure . If he was unsure of his saftey while they remained he made to move to show it. In fact I dare say he was more at ease in this moment than any other time I had ever seen him. His shirtless​ness did not help, but had to be one of the main causes behind an entirely different ache.

I sighed and looked out the open shutters of my window. Four hours yet until dinner, four hours that would be better spent napping. I twisted deeper into my bed and reach for my blanket which once again was already moving over my body by a pair of tan male hands. "Sndi," I wishpered.

"What?" He moved his face closer to mine.

"Sndi, it means thank you in Finis."

"How do you, say your welcome?"

"Dun Nara,"  I said.

"Dun nara then my mate."

I gave him a small smile and tucked my head back in to sleep. I felt him run his hand over my hair before he said in my ear, "Son baku nuhra ma fin." Somehow I knew what he was saying, 'I'll visit your dreams my fin.' With that I let sleep take me, where I was still whole.

•

The hot spring was light foggy pink do largely in part of the minerals floating through it. I did not need to open my eyes to know that, or picture the dozens of colored lights from beneath the water as I had once remembered it. Fins, dozens of colored fins had come alive every night during my childhood. I knew my only fins were a light something they did rarely since my blood mothers death when I was six. It had been ten years since I had swam in this pool but I could still picture it, still feel the plus that each heart echoed in water. The push and pull that came with swimming bodies. The mating songs, and underwater children giggles.

Here I would have all those things​ but they were just my memories not the real things and never something I would truly touch. I slowly opened my eyes and treaded the water of the pool slowly bring the family colors into being. A group of yellows spashing there, whites diving there, a teen grey and russet sneaking off away from parents to be alone. Bora naka, the pool of lovers I remember my mother once telling me. 'Your father sat at the edge of Bora naka for a twelve nights. We had all been cations around an unfined male, none of us had seen one till that point. But every night he came back and then two nights into it he would say my name just once he would call it. he would talk afterwords but I never understood a word of it. One night I finally snuck off out of the pool and bit him.' Mother had held the white hair that all Obas had been blessed with. There had been five children my age with the white hair and it was known that one day I would take my friends and their males to make another tribe away from the others. Or I would have if I had stayed here among my people.

"Where do you find these places?" came the deep voice behind me. It was a voice that had not dotted my childhood memories. Dimitri had followed me even here to my home realm the water.

I turned to face him making a point to sigh as I opened my eyes. "These places?" I asked.

"The forest and river last night and now this pool tonight."

"They are from my childhood sometimes the memories become my dreams. It cannot be helped since it has been so long."

"Why is you are more truthful here?" Slowly he walked closer to the pools edge. I watch him a moment wondering if I really was more open here and if so why.

"I feel safer here among my own people."

He sat down as close to the pools edge asking one question, "Where? Where are your people?"

"In the hot spring," I giggled. "Can you not see the fins? I miss those lights, like stars on earth. Maybe one day I will let my own grow back just to see it again."

" Would they follow you to different lands?"

"Only if I were to go and ask if of them. Many would not but some might be swayed to follow a young Oba. Even then I would need my fins-"

"Start growing them. Grow your fins, go to your people, bring some with you. You are my mate that means a new home in the Fae lands." I sat quite a moment before pushing of the story ledge. I had not sat in the shallows around that ledge since I had been among the Kuma. Story time was a teasured thing for the Finic people when between the ages of 7 months and 4 years. Here my fins were as I remembered them once spread out and and flashing. I was as small here I had been then but still a group of smaller dimer lights swam quickly to me. Brown hair, orange fin, a golden head with a red creast, and blue fins wiggled behind little ears beneath black hair. Niharo, Cincina, and Micha the three boys who would have served in my first circle as guards to me.

"Oba titny sukuna gina dunsun!"
"Mai kiki funa tun!"

I closed my eyes at the echoed remains of their arguing voices, well Cincina and Michas that is. Niharo paid them little mind same as me. Beside me he flared and flashed his orange fins. He had four of them one on each of his forelims. It was a game for males that would help them later in life. We females had different games to practice on mating rituals but that had never stopped me before. But my beautiful memories soon turned into a nightmare when a trig snapped off in the tree line. The pool went dark save my own dim child bioluminescent fins. Just enough light to catch to yellow eyes and striped fur. The tiger from the Crossing.

•
I shot up from bed covered in cold sweat. Dimitri himself was looking at me with hauted eyes. This time it was the twins and Ethan who had died by the tiger but the three males who should have been my guards. I could still see that outstretched hand that had been Michas, he had been just inches from the pool.

Some understanding had seeped into Dimitri's eyes. Tiger Tiger Burning bright in the forest of the night. I could only hope my other familiar was not a tiger.