Light as a Cloud

Chapter 3

After eating the wolf leg, Ayra led Jewel over the deserted battlefield. Not far from the place Ayra had found the dagger was a space where only a few young, thin trees grew, which allowed the slightly orange sunlight to shine on the many blades lying here. Some were broken, some stuck in the ground, a few lying half in the ribcages of soldiers that lost. Ayra suspected that their enemies had stabbed them, but were then unable to pull the weapon out of their victim again, and that way the daggers and spears had been forced to be abandoned.

"What shall we do now, girl?" Ayra asked herself out loud.

Jewel turned its head to Ayra and growled: "Graaa!"

"No, I didn't mean y-" Ayra's eyes widened. "Wait. Are you even a girl?"

Jewel walked forward a bit and turned its back to Ayra.

"No, no, no!" Ayra laughed. "I don't need to see it." She turned her head to the left to avoid the view between the dragon's legs. "I'll just call you Jewel. That's your name anyway."

Jewel growled again. It flapped its giant wings back and forth, causing a wind so strong that Ayra got blown backwards and fell. Her head and left shoulder smashed onto some dead soldier's skull. However, the pain dissolved instantly, as Ayra's left arm made violent contact with the razor sharp edge of a dagger that had been resting in the ribcage. The old steel cut through Ayra's soft flesh to the bone, which it reached even before Ayra's surprised scream sounded.

"My arm!" Ayra gasped, her eyes open so wide that a fairy wing couldn't cover it wholly. "Jewel, help me!"

Jewel hesitated, not quite sure what to do. Ayra was trying to get up, despite the fact that she was dizzy and disoriented from the fall. Her dragon saw her struggle, it understood the problem, but it didn't know what was expected. Of course Jewel had been wounded before, but its scales were sturdy and the injuries had never been so severe that something had to be done about it.

Ayra picked up the dagger with her right hand now and cut her left sleeve off completely. She tried to wrap it tightly around the wound, that was bleeding heavily. The grey cloth quickly turned red as Ayra was fiddling with it in an attempt to close the cut.

"For the Elvenking's sake, Jewel, come here!" Ayra cried.

Jewel seemed to come back to life. It picked up a war dart from the soil and clumsily hopped towards its mistress. There it held the wooden shaft against Ayra's wounded arm and clenched them together with its talon, pressing the cut shut and fixing the now blood-soaked cloth in place between wood and skin. Now Ayra could tie the war dart tightly to her arm and close the wound, and so the bleeding stopped.

"Thanks, buddy," she sighed, and patted Jewel between its horns.

Jewel happily flapped its wings again, but more subtle this time, to prevent more accidents.

Ayra laughed painfully, and she hang the dagger in her belt. "I'll keep this mean guy," she explained. "You never know when you'll need a weapon."

She tried to stand up, but quickly had to lean on Jewel as the blood loss and the fall had left her light-headed. The world seemed to spin in all directions around her. Jewel now curved its talons around her frail body to support her.

"Well," Ayra gasped, "I guess we're staying here for the night."

The next day, as soon as the first rays of sunlight pinkened the sky, Ayra woke up. She found it'd rained at night; the fire that Jewel had set to some branches was out and Ayra was wet as if She'd rolled into the Teelen. She wondered how she had slept through it, but didn't give it too much thought.

The cloth around her left arm had gotten a dark brown shade. Ayra cut off her right sleeve as well and clumsily replaced the bandage. It was even more clumsy than it should've been, because Ayra refused to look at the wound; just the thought of all the blood made her feel sick. She hoped to reach Fennekirch this day and expected there to be better doctors within its walls than herself to help her out. Until then, the sleeve would have to do.

Ayra walked up to Jewel, who was curled up on the other side of the roasted branches, and pushed against its strong front legs to wake it. However, she quickly drew back her hands as she felt that Jewel's scales were dry. She suspected there to be a reasonable explanation, but couldn't think of one, and so she kept some safe distance just to be sure.

"Jewel, wake up," she called, "we have to get to Fennekirch!"

Jewel opened its eyes and wearily looked up at Ayra. It flashed from Ayra's face to the new bandage, and then back to her face. It stretched its giant wings, that still shivered with drowsiness, but let them fell flat next to itself again and closed its eyes.

Ayra sighed. "Jewel..."

The dragon opened only one eye and stared up at its mistress. Other than that, it didn't move an inch.

"Get up!" Ayra commanded. "We have to reach Fennekirch today!"

Finally, Jewel dragged itself up. It had never been used to getting up early. Jewel was a wild dragon, at least, it used to be, and it had never known anything other than doing whatever it wanted, including getting up at whatever time it felt like it. However, Ayra was too likable to disobey when she meant it. Jewel felt how different she was from all the other creatures it had met that had tried to dominate it. Most big, grown-up dragons tried to boss Jewel around by spitting flames over the area, some daring elfs or eminns would shout and scream and get all hysterical, but not Ayra. Ayra was sweet and gentle to Jewel, despite being barely understandable at times. If Jewel was going to stay with someone, it would for sure be someone like Ayra rather than a yelling humanoid or show-off dragon.

After having freshly roasted breakfast, Ayra and Jewel flew up and continued their way to Fennekirch. The sun was slowly climbing higher and slowly washing out the morning red. The rain clouds had already been chased away by the fierce wind that sometimes made it hard to fly straight, but other than the wind, the weather was ideal.

Within a few hours, a white dot on the horizon marked the location of either a lake of milk or a huge castle.

"Look over there, Jewel!" Ayra cheered. "I think that's Fennekirch!"

"Graaa!" Jewel growled.

It adjusted its course ever so slightly down, in a straight line to what was now a white circle in the distance. The closer they came, the easier it was to recognize the four circles and the massive towers of the keep in the middle. Ayra had always wondered where they'd gotten all the stone to build this enormous structure, however, now approaching Fennekirch she noticed something far more curious about it: it was actually built over the river Teelen. Fennekirch's gates were located above the water. Jewel was now close enough to allow Ayra to notice the little boats on the Teelen, sailing in and out of Fennekirch.

"Man," Ayra said out loud, "whoever built this sure had money!"

The moment she said that, she realized that she didn't have any. Her parents had never given her money and she hadn't thought of it to take some of Leika's money after the murder.

"Do you have a dragon hoard, Jewel?" Ayra asked.

Jewel hang its head and let out a soft "graaa".

Ayra clacked her tongue. "I guess we're broke, then."