Wake the Beast

Chapter Eight

Azure started her new sleeping habit right away. It was difficult, to be sure, especially when the more outspoken dragons tried to wake her. It was hard to turn them away, and even harder to fall back to sleep after they'd gone, but somehow she managed it. She didn't have a great attitude when Alex arrived, but she'd done it—she'd refused every odd job presented to her. And she hadn't even been forced to fetch her mother!

Worry snagged her thoughts with sharp thorns, warning her about her uncle's reaction, but she merely patched them up and ignored the wounds. Her mother was right: Uncle Quartz hadn't been paying her in any way, shape, or form for doing this service for him, so she had no strings attached. She enjoyed helping others, but not to the extent where she was running herself ragged every single day. It would be nice to focus on one, singular dragon for a change. A steady job, some would call it, though she wasn't being paid for this, either.

"Uh, hello," Alex greeted her as he landed, tucking his wings in close. He arrived bathed in moonlight, cutting a striking vision in her sleep-deprived mind. "Have you come to a decision, my lady?"

"I have," Azure said, smiling weakly at him. Sleep clung to her every muscle, dragging along every scale, but that was due more to the sudden change in sleeping habits than anything else. "I will gladly help you. This will give me a break from everything else and refresh my knowledge along the way. So! What do you need to know first?"

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "You want to start right away?"

"Unless you have other plans tonight. It's no problem if you do! I just assumed you'd want to begin immediately."

"Yes! Of course!" Alex quickly assured her. "I just wasn't sure you'd want to start so soon."

Azure wasn't sure whether to be touched by his concern or embarrassed by her exhaustion. She was fine for now, but Lord knew she'd be crashing later. In the end, her ear tips smoldered in a burning, scarlet hue. She cleared her throat and told him, "We might have to cut it short tonight, but I can introduce you to the basics of whatever it is you're wanting to know."

"Dragon etiquette," he said immediately.

"Yes, but what specifically?" she prompted him, suppressing a sigh of exasperation. What exactly was this guy going for? What did he want from her?

"I- I'm not certain," he floundered, looking a bit lost. "What do I need to know? Ah! Yes, well, I don't know anything about royal titles, or, uh, ballroom courtesies. Do you?"

What an odd way to say it, she thought. Oddly human, that is. "Ballroom"? He must have some human friends near a village. A gossiping village. I could see Sara and Susi talking about those sort of things if Gemma had ever let them near other people.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Azure answered a few beats too late. Just enough to be awkward. Whoops. "My uncle made sure I knew my way around the trickier spots of higher dragons. We don't have 'royals,' as humans call them, though we've adopted the term of 'king.'"

"Is it proper to address you as 'lady'?" Alex inquired tentatively.

"Um, well, not exactly," she sputtered, her ears burning again. "That's normally reserved for dragons who are... interested in each other. Courting, if you will."

Which was part of the reason why she was so... flustered around him. Did he like her? Or was he just so uninformed that he didn't know the basics of what he called "dragon etiquette"? Did she like him? Or was she just flattered by his unassuming attention? Ugh, this was so confusing! What did he know and what didn't he know?

"Oh." He stared at her, blinking in incomprehension for a few moments. "Ohhh. My apologies, my- I mean, I never meant to- what I mean is- well, this why I need a tutor. I don't... get out much."