To have a Dragon's Heart

Chapter 7 - Kiterna and Therdash

                                                          Malia

                It was morning when I reached my cave and Jaskar was standing in the entrance. “Jaskar! What are you doing?!” I demanded. Jaskar took a step back. Opps, I must have sounded angry. For some reason humans are scared of me when I get angry. “Sorry!” Jaskar exclaimed, “I was worried. You were gone for a long time.”

                “I’m back now,” I said. I was still worried that he would go back to Faver. If that happened I would have to bring him back. Then I would have to kill Faver if he so much as touched a scale, um, hair on his body. Then I would slap Jaskar silly for being stupid. Not literally of course. I was so large that slapping Jaskar would be really bad for his health. My front feet were larger than his head.

                I looked at Jaskar. He had a good heart, but he would need more confidence to be a prince. I needed to think a something to start, something small. Then it came to me. “It’ll be good if you get out more,” I told him, “Why don’t I give you ride and show you the sights.” Jaskar paled. “N… no… no thanks. I’m fine. I love the cave. I don’t need to fly,” he stammered.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him, “Why are you scared of flying?” He shuffled his feet and said, “It’s just that you fly a little… high.” I thought for a moment. I guess two to three miles off the ground is a little high. “Okay then. Let’s take a walk outside.” Jaskar brightened up at this.

                Soon we were running through the woods, while Jaskar was running. I flew since the trees grew a little too close together. “Jaskar!’ I called. “Hurry up! I’ve seen noble women run faster that you!”

              “Noble women don’t run!” Jaskar called up to me.

            “Exactly!” I replied.

            We stopped by the stream which had a small clearing that I could land in. Jaskar laid down on the ground panting hard. He sounded like he was dying. Finally he managed to say, “That… was… great! Been… to long… since… I last ran!” I laughed and said, “That explains why you were so slow.” Then I heard something. “Someone’s coming I said. Then I jumped into the sky and landed on a cliff that wasn’t too far away. After all we were at the foot of the mountains that bordered the western side of the kingdom. I could hear and see everything.

            Jaskar didn’t hide in time. He was halfway up a tree when a well-dressed girl walked out of the woods. “Oh! Hello! I didn’t realize that anyone else came here,” she said. Her hair was done up in a braid that wrapped around her head like a crown. She wore a pretty dress. I guessed that she came from a noble family.

             “Oh… uh… I don’t usually come here. This is my first visit, actually,” Jaskar said. The girl nodded and she then said. “I haven’t heard an accent like yours. Where are you from?” Jaskar’s accent! By my scales why haven’t I thought of it before?! Of course he had an accent he wasn’t raised as a Heskar. He had a Seqan accent. He couldn’t tell her he was from an enemy country and he could refuse to answer a noble. I was just about to fly over and scare her off when the problem solved itself.

             “Um... I… uh,” Jaskar mumbled. The girl immediately blushed and said, “Oh I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you! I just liked your accent.” I decided that she probably wasn’t from a noble family if she was being polite to a boy who looked like a peasant. Jaskar scrambled down from his tree. Suddenly I hear, “Kiterna! Hide!” A boy a little older that Kiterna burst into the clearing. He stood up and looked around. “Funny, I know I just saw the dragon.” Dragon?! No!! Impossible!