If Jason had, had time to look when he entered he would have been able to see quite clearly why the Golden Claw was named so but with Marion almost dragging him out of excitement up the main stairwell he could only catch glimpses of the multiple golden or gold laced décor of the inn that was probably on par with the royal treasury in value. Normally this much gold in one space would be considered an eyesore but somehow Marion had managed to balance it out with the cold toned, glass-like stones the inn was mostly made of and warm but not bright colored woods and fabrics for the furniture, floors, carpets and the parts of the inn that weren’t made from stone. As for the “claw” part of the name, given that mostly dragons stayed here in the offseason it would be normal to assume that’s who it referred to, except it wasn’t Marion or even a dragon who originally owned the inn, which Jason was about to find out.
It had taken very little time to reach the set of double doors at the back of the second floor amongst the single doors that were guest rooms they rented of various sizes. Marion swiftly pulled out a bronze key for the doors, it was to the staff living quarters which guests did not need to be poking around in, opened the one on the right and led Jason back. The staff area was more modest than the main part of the building but none the less did not lack in expensive, golden items, at least in the cozy seating area that they had entered.
“Wait here, I’ll go get her,” Marion said, much more quietly and calmly than before, probably to avoid waking anyone Jason assumed, relieved to see the easily excitable dragon did contain some self-restraint. Marion walked down a small hallway that led away from the seating area while the very tired Jason hungrily eyed a soft looking seat and did not hesitate in taking up residence in it.
Originally he had thought that Marion would waste no time in introducing him to Joyce but the minutes began to wear on and before he knew it he as slouched over in the chair, exhausted and asleep. But to his dismay it wasn’t long after that he was woken up by a gentle tapping on his shoulder. Unwillingly he opened his eyes to see Marion again grinning happily, as he expected and with another girl who looked like a teenage version of Marion but with a sour look on her face he could only assume was Joyce.
Marion, the one who had tapped him away, spoke, “Sorry again, I didn’t realize you would drift off that fast. I’ll have your room ready soon, but until then, please meet my daughter, your cousin, Joyce. She’ll keep you company while I finish.”
Joyce looked over at Jason and walked over at the sound of her name, though given how grumpy she looked Jason wasn’t all that sure how thrilled she was to playing host. Joyce was still in her work clothes, a brown skirt, and shirt that had patches of dirt or ash that needed to be cleaned off, so at least she hadn’t been sleeping when Marion got here. Despite looking like Marion, she was nowhere near as cheerful and simply said, “Hi,” when she approached.
Now feeling a bit awkward Jason just said, “Hi,” back.
For a few moments, there was silence. Jason wasn’t in the talking mood anyway and hoped that Joyce would sit down or say it was fine for him to go back to sleep but she spoke up instead, “So, my mom says you were born of fire too?”
“…Yeah.
“How long ago?” Joyce’s tone remained flat like she was trying to be polite and make small talk but really wasn’t in the mood.
“Uh, just a couple days ago, actually.”
Joyce perked up at his answer and started acting more curious, “Really? You look kind of old for a fire hatchling that fresh. Were you an old man on the verge of death from old age or something?”
“No, I just turned twenty-five and almost died trying to help save Sarre,” Jason said bluntly, a bit annoyed at her attitude but Joyce’s jaw dropped.
“What? You almost look my age! I got turned back to a freaking toddler when Marion saved me. You should be a baby!” Joyce exclaimed.
Jason was both irritated and lost now, “What do you mean? How old are you now?”
“I’m a hundred and twenty-seven but I was about fifty as a human when my mom, Marion, saved me and became a hatchling. But I became a toddler in my human form but you’re only twenty-five and you look, what fourteen, fifteen?”
“Probably fifteen, I was about this height then,” Jason mumbled, still disgruntled at being this young again.
“Well, at least you didn’t have to go from being all settled in life, a home, a husband and even my job running this inn to being three years old and relearning…everything. I lost most of my human memories, so be grateful,” Joyce said in a huff but her complaints only brought up more questions that Jason wanted to ask.
“Wait, this was your inn?”
“Yeah, at least that’s what my mom says. I was dying of a human plague when my husband brought her in. We didn’t have any kids, so I was all he really had. He asked her to save me but he didn’t realize what that meant. He just thought I would get better and life would move on, like most humans who use dragon’s amber.”
“Ok, you’ve lost me. Why would someone use dragon fire, or amber, seek out a dragon for healing? The only ones I knew of before all of, this, were plagued,” Jason asked, not willing to miss an opportunity to have some of the questions that had been nagging him in the back of his mind answered.
“Huh, I guess that would be odd to you, it wasn’t until after I became a dragon that the plagued dragons became a problem in Avonous and the normal ones withdrew for the most part. It used to be said that dragon’s fire, dragon amber, could cure all sorts of ailments that they got from old mixed-up stories about the dragon’s plague. It wasn’t so much a thing here, even back then, but to the south and the west, they used to dig up old dragon skeletons with their fire sacks, with the fire all hard, and piece it out to apothecaries or anyone who would buy it. Old dragon’s amber is harmless, I mean taking a lot of it might make you sick, it is pretty much the same thing as drinking or eating ground up bone or stone, something like that. But when the old stores started running out, they took to finding what humans took to calling liquid amber or dragon’s fire, which was a problem since live dragons were either plagued or refused to share their fire cause it was a big taboo. Though a lot of dragons, younger ones mostly, didn’t know why. It wasn’t like the knowledge was forbidden but it got overlooked after so long and they forgot what the real reason why they didn’t share their fire. In my case, my mom didn’t know and she liked hanging out with humans, mostly here since the inn and the area have a long history, which I assume Quil already told you. So when I got sick, he went to my mom for help and she took sympathy on him and agreed. But a few drops later, I turned into a dragon in dragon form and I guess burning down the inn almost. Some Monarchs were staying here thankfully, helped stop all the chaos, went and got Quil and your mom, Quil explained the whole fire hatchling thing and got me into human form as a toddler and Marion took over the inn and raised me from there.”
Joyce had told the whole story in a nonchalant, matter of fact way. It didn’t bother her to tell it, it was what it was and really the only life she had known was as a dragon. There never was a transition or a bunch of questions or what to do about this or that, like it was with Jason, just a lot of fond memories of Marion and her, and with a small grin, causing trouble for Quil. She had been excited to hear that there was another fire hatchling like her but even before she asked Jason the questions she did, Marion had already told her that he was just a few days old, so when she saw that he looked close to her age, she wasn’t happy. Joyce had hoped for someone like a baby brother to play with and help raise, not whatever Jason was supposed to be. Apparently, no one had clued him in that fire hatchlings, every single one before him, had always been a human age of no more than five, their memories of their human life a blank slate. But it wasn’t her place to tell him, if Quil hadn’t yet, he would have to soon anyway.
“But what about your husband? And the people that knew you? You really have no memory?” Jason asked while Joyce kept her thoughts to herself.
“My husband was too distraught after the fire and watching his wife turn into a dragon and I guess everyone we knew was in this town. All I know is that my mom got him a bunch of gold with her fire and bought the inn and changed the name from the “Bear’s Claw” to the “Golden Claw”. He never came back,” Joyce added with a bit of bitterness. Even though she didn’t remember him, it still hurt that he had abandoned her.
“Oh, sorry,” Jason could see he had hit a sore nerve and quickly changed the subject and tried to be humorous, “So when you changed you could breathe fire already? It must have looked kind of odd coming out of a little kid.”
“What are you talking about? I turned into a dragon hatchling first and all dragons can breathe fire at fifty. It took a few months before I could stay in human form consistently. You can probably hold your human form easy since you’re older looking.”
Jason scrunched up his brows confused, “What are you talking about? I just got younger. You actually turned into a dragon, dragon?”
Now Joyce was the one confused. Not only did Jason look much too old for his age in human form but he hadn’t even changed into his natural or dragon form. “Is he even a fire hatchling?” she thought to herself before she answered back angrily, “Of course, how else would it be?”
Jason just sat in the chair stumped, he didn’t know how to answer her. When he heard he would be meeting another fire hatching, meeting Joyce, he thought he would be able to get some answers on how she handled going from being a human to dragon, what it was like for her when she first flew or breathed fire, but instead it was probably more accurate to say that all she knew was how to be a dragon and he was still the odd one out.
Joyce saw the conflict on his face, took a deep breath and sighed, “Never mind, Quil probably knows why and he’ll tell you.”
Jason nodded in agreement and took look around the room and its golden décor, “So, where did all the gold come from? I mean, if it’s all real, it’s worth at least the entire treasury of the capital.”
“Oh, my mom can turn stuff into gold with her fire. Or any metal actually but mostly gold. It won’t work on things that are alive, even plants. So really just stone and metal objects, which is good, otherwise we would have a small army of statues in the yard with her temper.”
“I didn’t really take her to be the type with that kind of temper. She’s mostly been really hyper since I got here. She almost broke my arm dragging me up here to meet you and all the hugging and squealing...”
Jason blabbed on before a deadly sounding voice spoke up from behind him, “Oh really? You don’t like your Auntie’s hugs?”
Joyce snickered as Jason twisted his head back to see what was only the beginning of what of Marion’s “temper” looked like as she changed from her human form to her councilor form, once again similar to Shea’s but her scales were gold and orange with a lighter flowing robe in a ruby red, no armor or wings and a lot more golden jewelry.
“Uh, no I-I was just really tired and-,” Jason started but Marion’s eyes only bore deeper.
Jason thought he was about to see the worst when Shea entered and intervened, “Really Marion? He’s known you all of an hour, it is the middle of the night after a very long and stressful day and you still act like this?”
Marion turned around to face her cousin but one very deadly look from Shea had her changing back to her human form and back to her nervous hyper self, “Ah I’m so sorry! You’re right, he really doesn’t know me yet, I shouldn’t take it so personally.” She laughed nervously while Shea eyed her cousin carefully and Marion turned to the still very nervous Jason, “Sorry about that! And you certainly look tired! But your room is all ready now and you can go get some rest. Same for you Joyce, time to clean up and got to bed.”
Joyce wordlessly left the room but was still grinning from the brief bit of amusement her mother had caused and Jason quickly shuffled past Marion and followed Shea to his room for the night. It didn’t take long for him to clean up and change, his room had come with a bath and hot water to use and Quil had picked up some basic clothes and other things he would need earlier according to a note he left on top of the knapsack that held them.
All of the dragons had their own rooms. It didn’t take long for Sarre and Manus to take to the luxurious beds, meant to be comfortable to dragons even in human form and Quil left to sleep as well once Shea assured him that she would be safe, especially with Marion around and instead to focus on protecting Jason. Quil agreed and left to check the inn one more time while Shea caught Marion up on everything that had happened since she had left a few days ago.
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