Lost Change

Chapter 39

There had been something else in that report, too. "Hey, Ivy?"

"I didn't do it!" Ivy's reply came back quickly. There was a note of wicked glee to her mindspeech, along with a sour note of some kind that I didn't quite understand.

I tilted my head. I hadn't talked to Ivy that much since she had visited - just the occasional good morning, or a reply to her check ups on how I was doing - but I knew enough to tell that was very odd for her.

"Do... what?"

"Nothing!" Her reply came back just as quickly - and it had that same sour feel to it. Was something wrong with her? Almost as soon as she finished the first thought she sent another - and this time that sour note was gone. "Hi Nate! How are things going?"

"The same. I just overheard the Kymari working on a report?"

"Yep! Trenil told her to do that; all of the bond handlers have to. The Kymari want to know as much about us as they can."

"Uh-huh." I remembered back to the report. "Trenil told her a lot of things, from the sound of it. What's this about a harness?"

"Ooo, did she get that on you already? Show me your reflection, I wanna see how it looks!"

"Wha- no! She hasn't done anything with it, just talked about it arriving. What are you so excited for? Did you help pick it out or something?"

"Maayyyybeeeee! Don't worry, it'll look great on you."

"I am not letting her put me in a harness to be jerked around like an animal! I don't care how great it looks on me!"

"Pfft, good luck with that. All of us have tried our best to get out of it; whatever they make that stuff out of is too thick to cut through with our claws and teeth. And to top it off, they're fireproof too. It's really not that bad though, once you get used to it. Trenil lets me go wherever I want when we're out; the harness is just to make sure I don't get mistaken for a wild dragonet or get too far away from him."

"But I am a wild dragonet! The place I want to go is far away from her!" Great. Just great. Clawproof and fireproof. I was going to have to think up some new way of getting out of it. "I'm not sure why I expect you to be helpful if you picked it out, but do you have any tips for avoiding it?"

The playful voice grew a bit more serious. "Sorry. We all hated the things at first, and each of us did our best to get out of it. Your best bet is to keep her from getting it on you in the first place, which might be doable for a day or two... but she's probably been clued in from the other handlers that it's best to put it on while you're distracted, and it's not easy to keep an eye out forever. Once she gets it on you that first time, you pretty much have no choice but to go to her to get it off, and she won't do that until you've settled down and gotten used to it. Which will just make it easier for her to get it on you next time. I can't even smell mine anymore; it smells too much like me at this point."

I sent back a reply that was more a tangle of grumpy emotion than actual words. Fine. If I couldn't defeat the harness itself, I would just have to defeat the Kymari. How did animals get out of having to wear harnesses? I knew dogs never seemed to mind a leash and a collar, but there probably had to be some reason I had never seen anyone walking their pet bunny around town...

I broke off my train of thought as I heard the Kymari return to the living room and sit back down on the couch. And... what was that smell...