Unanimously after they all had woken up sometime around midday, the dragons decided against telling Jason the real reason why they wouldn’t be flying at all, which was one of the few things he had actually had been looking forward to now it was clear he was stuck being a dragon. They had plenty of other reasons as well, of course, Sarre was still down his second pair of wings he needed to fly, they needed to avoid being noticed by humans, there wasn’t enough time to wait for Jason to learn how to transform into his dragon form and a dragon riding another dragon was not appropriate.
Jason’s face quickly soured at the news, but Quil calmly reassured him that flying would be one of the first things he would learn when they arrived at Torvis. He had to tag on that Jason would have to learn to change into his dragon form before that could happen of course, which was something that should have automatically already happened.
Given the already abnormal circumstances and the fickle nature of his mother’s lineage, Quil assumed some quirks, though inconvenient, were bound to occur and it was nothing to worry over. Still, he decided to keep this from Jason who would inevitably forget his human life once he transformed completely, just like all fire hatchlings. Instead, Quil promised Jason that he would teach him about breathing and controlling his fire once they were past Densai, maybe sooner. This was more of a necessity than something fun. They couldn’t risk Jason setting things on fire by accident and Quil needed Jason to cooperate with them, not just for the Matriarch’s sake but his own as well.
It wasn’t known why, but the stronger a dragon’s fire was, the number of offspring they could have, by egg and fire, went down. In Shea’s case, her lineage only allowed her to have one child over her entire life. However, the sheer power and potency of her fire could reduce the capital of Avonous instantaneously into ash with a single burst. Jason, as a dragon, was too young to produce anything that powerful and it would be another two hundred years or so, but without learning any control now while they were traveling he could easily turn most of the creatures, humans, and buildings they would come across into ash, a situation Quil intended to avoid dealing with altogether.
The only thing the dragons had left to discuss was the change the newly forged daggers had undergone while they slept. Quil had been the first to wake and notice that their power had disappeared, but before they had time to discuss it, Jason had woken up in a mood on par with a wrathful phoenix. Of course, the first thing Jason noticed was that all the dragons were in their human forms. For a few moments, his eyes flicked back and forth in silence to each of them before Quil spoke up to explained and Jason let out a sigh of relief.
While Quil did this, along with going over with Jason about the flying, fire, and most importantly, the lessons and dragon etiquette Quil had prepared to teach him during the trip and beyond, the others prepared for the journey ahead, carefully hiding the daggers to be discussed at another time.
In a practiced, somewhat dry tone, Quil droned on about the ground rules for traveling like limiting contact with humans, especially anyone and any place where he was well-known, eating and sleeping arrangements that for his sake would be at local inns and would use human camping supplies, and what to do if a plagued dragon and its horde appeared at any point. Quil was about to go on about the extra caution they would have to use when they had past Densai, the second largest city north of the Capital when he caught Jason blankly staring out at the other three dragons.
Quil furrowed his brow and barked at Jason, “Are you paying attention?”
“Maybe…,” Jason mumbled absentmindedly while continuing to space off. He had already decided that most of what Quil had said to him was redundant and fairly pointless. He knew how to act around humans and the last thing he wanted was for anyone he knew to see him as an unimpressive, scrawny, fifteen-year-old kid instead of the noble knight he had been just yesterday. He was more concerned about how, if it was still possible, to approach the King’s Guard who would be waiting in Densai for him to return. That was if they hadn’t given up on him and the cure to the plague.
Quil grit his teeth at Jason’s indifference, “This is not the time to screw around! All of this information is or will be vital to you. Since we are not able to return home by flight and will be traveling on foot, you must know how we as dragons conduct ourselves-“
Jason slouched back, rolled back his eyes and spat, “Oh geez, give it a rest! I was a human and a knight in the King’s Guard less than a day ago! Do you really think I don’t know how to act around people?”
Quil squinted his eyes and gave Jason a good hard look which Jason returned with an equally fierce gaze.
“Do you actually think that it is the same? Even for you?” Quil questioned.
“Why wouldn’t it be? I was born and raised as a human before all this,” he threw back, raising his brow.
With a huff, Quil shook his head and muttered “hatchlings” under his breath, “Alright, then you can show me that it’s no different. There is a small farming community that we will pass through today on the way to the inn we will be staying at. If you prove me wrong, then you may pick what you will learn first, aside from flying. If you don’t, I will also assign written work that you will complete each night during the trip instead of starting it when we reach Torvis.”
Jason stared at him for a moment, trying to decide if Quil was hiding anything, but after hundreds of years as an advisor, Quil’s face gave nothing away.
“Fine but I get to skip three days of lessons too,” Jason wagered.
Quil simply nodded and bluntly said, “Agreed,” before glancing over at the others, with Menus waving them over, ready to begin the month-long journey to Torvis.
It was only a short ways away from the field turned battleground that Quil, Sarre, and Menus had stashed a small wagon with an open top and not far from there a detailed stone carving of a horse that looked extremely out of place in the middle of the thick woods. Before Jason could ask about it, Menus in his human form, with longish, dark-red hair, freckled skin, green eyes and a tall, bird-like build and about him, walked over and breathed a fine mist of his fire over the face of the horse. Within a few heartbeats the statue was a living, breathing being with black hair, thick hooves with white socks. Jason was at a loss for words when Sarre, who was tall, heavily built with muscle with dark skin, chocolate brown eyes but unlike his fierce natural form, had a kind, gentle look to his face and pleasant, comforting tone in his voice explained to Jason, “Dragon’s fire can do much more than burn and cure the plague and wounds, but it is different for every dragon. For Menus, he can turn things to stone and then reverse it. I’ve even heard he can take things made of ordinary stone and bring them to life, but he has no control over what though.”
“Stop spreading that rumor Sarre! We both know that was my sister’s doing and the two of you almost wreaked our relations with the Griffin Clans to play that prank!” Menus ratted him out while hooking the horse up to the cart, completely unaware it had been solid stone only a few moments ago while Sarre laughed at the memory.
Jason continued to stare at the horse in disbelief before he asked Sarre, “What else can it do? Is that hard to learn?”
“You’ll find out soon enough but you first have to prove to me that it is no different for a dragon in human form to walk among humans than any other human,” Quil spoke from behind, reminding Jason of their bet.
With a look of determination Jason boasted, “And after I do the first thing I want to learn about is dragon fire and what I can do.”
“Well the farm where we bought this horse is not far from here, so you won’t have to wait long,” Quil returned while Menus stifled a snicker and Sarre turned his head to hide a grin. They had both been through this before with regular hatchling and Quil and never failed to entertain. Jason was oblivious to the other two’s reactions, still confident that he was right.
After everyone was set, with Menus and Sarre at the reigns and Quil, Shea and Jason seated in the back with their supplies, they headed back out of the woods and onto the main road that headed northwest toward the village of Dawnbraught and the multiple small farming communities that surrounded it. They had left a little later than they would have liked and it was about noon when they reached the community of about twenty or so farmers that all worked at one of the three homesteads. They stopped just shy of the main entrance, a simple stone archway that said had “Dawnbraught Fields” carved into a plaque set in the stones. Quil who had been resting his eyes opened them and looked over at a clearly doubtful Jason who was also not doing a very good job at hiding it.
“Well hatchling, go on ahead. The merchant two doors down should be expecting us to pick up our monthly supplies. Just tell him Quil sent you,” Quil said with an edge of playfulness in his voice.
Jason gave Quil a quick glare before jumping easily out of the wagon, “Fine. I’ll be back,” and walked in.
Shea finally spoke up, concerned, “Quil, isn’t it a little too soon? He has clearly has no idea.”
Sarre chuckled, “Best he finds out here among friends rather than in the middle of a crowded square.”
“Should one of you at least follow him? In case there are any who aren’t friends?” Shea asked nervously.
“There is no need to worry your Majesty. If he makes it to the shop without any incident, he would be the first in all my years of teaching hatchlings,” Quil reassured her as he watched Jason pass under the stone archway. As he did and he walked closer to a small group of helpers, on break from tending the fields, the first thing he noticed was the smell that he could only describe as burnt vomit, sickly sour, sweet and ashen which made his stomach turn. He kept walking forward, trying to ignore the smell, when one of the farmer’s hands, where he found the smell was coming from, hailed him with a friendly smile, “Hey there! Anything we can help you with?”
Jason normally would have asked for directions to the small shop and some information about the area, but the first thing that he blurted out was, “Who asked you insect? Are you trying to insult me?” in a very irritated, angry voice.
“What was that?! Why did I say that? I need to apologize right away!” Jason thought but as soon as he did, he could only say, think and feel annoyed at the farmhand, calling him a cockroach with no head with the wits of a drowning fish and smell of a hog house, who just looked on at Jason with a very confused face.
“Um, I’m sorry but we don’t know your language. You look pretty young, is this your first time outside Torvis?” the farmhand asked, surprising Jason.
“What? I’m speaking Uni, the basic trade language. And how does he know-oh gosh the smell just gets worse! Why?!” Jason thought to himself and was about to speak up again before he found himself on all fours and his stomach finally let loose its contents along with drops of fire from his fire sack.
The three farmhands stepped back, not surprised but certainly with a look of disgust and pity on their faces, “Yeah, Quil sent in another hatchling. He’s probably just outside the gate. Can you go grab him Sam? I’ll go grab the oils he ordered.”
“No problem. Poor kid, probably his first time near humans. I still can’t believe we smell this bad to them,” Sam, who was a bit short with sandy blond hair and sun-reddened skin, replied before running back the way Jason had come.
“I was a human nitwit!” Jason mumbled out when he finally heard what they had actually heard, which was, “Nock’telth a machld!”
The remaining farmhand, an older woman who looked like she spent most her time in the fields shushed him gently, “It’s best you don’t try to speak. In case you get sick again.”
Jason wanted to rebuttal her words, but his stomach and head ached too much now from the smell to do anything more than let out a moan. Not too long after Quil walked up with Sam, completely unaffected by the smell and clearly speaking in Uni to him, sending them away with the smell before he spoke to Jason in the same tongue that Jason could only guess must have been the dragons’ native tongue.
“Don e’tella amok a t’lheth?” or as Jason understood, “Are you able to get up?”
Jason glared at Quil and stated more than actually asked, “You knew this was going to happen.”
Quil chuckled a little, not proud of his victory but glad the lesson was learned all the same, “Yes, as it has with at least fifty other egg hatchlings in this small community. Don’t worry, you by far aren’t the worst but I would be glad that these humans don’t understand Torvinus or dragon’s tongue. I’m certain being called a headless cockroach would not have gone over so well. Would you like to wait in the wagon while I gather our supplies?”
Jason just groaned, also not understanding why his manners had also gone flying out like his breakfast just had, though he suspected that would be a mystery short-lived as he nodded and Quil deftly helped him up and walked back to the gate with him.
“Here Shea, you son’s all yours for now. I’d give him the medicine with the gorn root first, he spat up some fire as well,” Quil said as he and Shea helped Jason lay down as comfortable as possible.
“Fire? Already?” Shea replied a bit surprised.
“You could breathe fire at his age. He’s just taking after you,” Quil said with a slight look of mischievousness in his deep blue eyes.
“You had been not be insinuating what I think you are,” Shea tried to threaten but Menus and Sarre’s snorts of laughter from up front made her turn her fierce gaze on them. Both stopped their laughter in a short fit of coughs before Shea withdrew her gaze and looked back to Quil with an arched brow.
“Don’t worry, at least he’ll get to learn about fire much sooner than before. That’s what you wanted, right Jason?”
“Shut it…” Jason grunted, not hesitating to take the brown and extremely bitter medicine his mother offered him.
Quil stood by for a moment to make sure the medicine started working, looking for the telltale glow from the fire sack before it died down that the gorn root was working before he headed into town to gather the rest of their supplies, noting that spots, where Jason’s fire had been spat up on, had not burnt through the road or turned into dragon’s amber. Instead, three small, pearlescent gold crystalline shapes had taken root and started to spread. All three were quickly crushed and their dust brushed away with a sweep of Quil’s foot, along with what little comfort today’s lesson had brought him for the future.
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