To Marry a Dragon

7. Campfire Tales

That night, Elvira set their campfire in a ruined farmhouse. It still had the hearth of fine stones that were laid down in the times of prosperity with hopes of many plenteous years to come. But the walls crumpled, trees burst through the floor, leaves and bones piled by the walls. The road still wound through the Tumerian Forest like a thread holding the cities on the northern shores of the Locked Sea to the scattering of the domains that hacked their territories out of the Northern and Western wilderness. It grew narrower with every decade that passed since the fall of the Ordovan Empire as the forest grew wilder with beasts and woodland creatures.

The stars came out, bright and cold, and the darkness crept closer to her fire. As the night air touched her with chilly fingers, Elvira huddled in the light, ears perked for monsters' shouts and eyes scanning the undergrowth beyond the ruins for unfriendly shadows or glowing irises.

She really could use some company about now, but Cerne didn't tell her how to wake her up, and she had no clue. Tentatively, she shook the acorn into the palm of her hand and bounced it up and down.

"Cerne? Are you there?" she whispered.

"Drop me on the ground," came a muffled response.

Elvira did, and the acorn rolled a few paces, before coming to a stop after hitting a dislodged stone. "Ouch," Cerne complained, rubbing her eyes, then her languid hip. "Are we there yet?"

Then, almost immediately, she added, "No, no, this won't do. This forest is too crowded with the needle-bearers. Those firs, they are sinister trees."

"Noted," Elvira said.

It was easy to believe with all the darkness lurking under the low branches. "I just thought you might want to stretch your legs after sleeping for so long." She spent hours in the saddle, so she followed her own advice, arching her back and flexing her legs.

"Long?" Cerne pouted in response. "I barely had a wink. I don't slumber in my acorn the way you do in your bedroll. I'm fully aware of what's going on around me. It's like shutting your eyes for a moment, but you could still breathe in the fire's smoke, hear the hooting of that owl..."

Elvira didn't feel like questioning her luck. She smoothed out her woolen cloak on the ground, set her chains and her shield to one side and arranged the packs under her head for a pillow. "Well then, you're a perfect sentinel. Wake me up if you hear anything suspicious."

"We're in the forest," Cerne grumbled, "everyone always gossips about suspicious things. And you promised to tell me about why you were fighting the dragon."

Elvira tried her best to explain the situation, but even to her own ears, she came across as rather stupid.

No wonder the dryad gave her a questioning look. "So, it was a mating ritual?"

Not really, but if she had to explain it again, she'd not rest her head on the pillow till dawn. "Yes, it was a mating ritual," she agreed with a sigh.

"How peculiar," the dryad said thoughtfully. "We are a tree. We flower, and the pollen floats. Our own pollen and our kin's pollen. Then we are acorns. You have you, Sigvart, Ferrante, a lengthy piece of paper and no wind."

Elvira smiled wistfully, despite herself. "It could have been simpler. No paper, no Sigvart, only Ferrante and me."

Cerne nodded along, though Elvira wouldn't vouch that the dryad understood her sentiment.

"I should feel guilty that marrying Sigvart is a sham," she confessed, looking into the merry flames of the campfire. "But I don't. The path I am on, it's not the best path. It's just the best for me, because I love Ferrante with all my heart. I suppose it makes me terribly selfish."