Chapter 23: Plans?

            The next thing I remember was being woken up by him kicking his leg into mine. I was rather groggy though when I opened my eyes reluctantly, I remembered I was facing the wall that the bed had been pushed against whilst he was spooning me with one arm over my side. It was quite sweet but him kicking me in the calf wasn’t very nice. Rolling onto my back, I looked at his face; he was still fast asleep. Suddenly, a strong urge came over me as to how to wake him up. I rolled onto my right side and then forcibly planted my lips to his. I had kept my eyes open and when his shot wide open, he pulled his whole body away and fell off the bed with a bang as he hit the hard wooden floor.

            ‘Are you trying to bruise all the parts of my body?’ he asked as he sat up and starred harshly at me.

            I had leant over the edge as soon as he disappeared out of my sight, taking most of the duvet with him. ‘You were the one who pulled away. And no, I’d rather you remain unhurt.’

            He stayed sat on the floor. ‘Oh and I wonder why that is.’ He hauled himself up and sat on the edge of the bed as he had done the night before. ‘I do appreciate the wake up kiss though.’

            Smiling to one side, I sat up from leaning and pushed myself closer to him. ‘I wasn’t quite done when you fell off.’

            He slipped his hands each side of my waist. ‘Then, I guess, we’d both be happier if you finish.’

            I did want to say ‘I agree’ but before I could open my mouth enough to say even one syllable, his lips were already on mine. A couple of years ago if someone had told me I would end up in a bed with a guy I hardly knew and ended up kissing him, I would have thought they were insane. This behaviour was totally unlike me but after three years living a life I had only ever dreamed of in my sleep, it was safe to say I had changed a lot.

            There wasn’t much complication to our kissing; we kept our lips shut and only pressed them together. It didn’t last very long either; when we separated, he winked at me as he put a hand in mine. Not really knowing what that meant, I pulled my hand away and went to stand up.

            ‘Shouldn’t you... be getting changed? Not here though,’ I added quickly before he started to strip; I wasn’t ready for that yet.

            Not knowing he had even stood up, he wrapped his arms around me and I almost yelped. ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ He stepped to my side and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I’ll catch you later then.’ And with that, he unlocked my door and disappeared out into the hallway.

*****

            It was early afternoon, a few days later, when I began to wonder when I should maybe leave. I still wanted to go to Fordem but I had a little complication that I hadn’t expected that threw my plans out of sync. Also, I hadn’t heard anything more about the possibility of that other dragon and neither had Frain caused any troubles with his eating habits. Frain, though, was cleverer about what to do about eating, especially after the incident with the villagers when we landed. Instead of preying on the local livestock (as he would have done in any other circumstance), he flew the few miles to go fishing or to try and find any open wandering deer. When I had visited him the day before now, he was starting to complain that he wasn’t really hunting the way a dragon would naturally and he was beginning to get rather bored of the taste of fish. I had been munching on some apples but they would do no good to him.

            I had also started to get a little bored of Baedon; I knew its streets all too well and there wasn’t much for me to do since most people would avoid me (even if they thought I didn’t notice). The only real problem was that I’d be leaving Seb here; I didn’t plan on letting him come with us and that meant the possibility of hurting him. It would take a bit to explain but I had to mentally convince myself he was merely a crush and at the same not upset him too much.

            Standing next to Frain’s shoulder, absent-mindedly stroking his scales, I tried to think of how to face him. My rather lazy dragon wasn’t much help as he basked in the bright sunlight whilst it was shining through the thinly spread clouds.

            ‘Uh, I just don’t know if I can do it,’ I mumbled to myself.

            Unfortunately, dragons had pretty good hearing as well as sight and smell. ‘If you don’t stop whining, I will do it for you,’ he complained.

            Clearly I was annoying him as he bathed in the warmth. ‘If that were only an option.’

            ‘Why don’t you say nothing and just leave?’ he suggested.

            I looked to my left at his big scaly head; he had his eyes shut and his neck outstretched so I doubt he felt me move my head. ‘Humans are more intuitive than dragons; we show our emotions more openly.’

            He snorted but other than his chest vibrating, he didn’t move. ‘Maybe that is your problem then. Emotions just cloud your judgement, I should know.’

            At first they were just chuckles but then I really laughed out loud and almost keeled over onto the ground. ‘Oh, please. What would you know about that? You’re too young, for a dragon, to know what on earth that means.’

            As soon as I had started laughing, he had lifted his head up and swung it round to stare at me as hard as he could without his eyelids shutting. ‘It is not funny,’ he growled. He huffed then stood up and his side pushed me forward (I had been leaning on him). ‘I may not have felt things for another creature, except maybe you, but dragons don’t share their feelings as you are so used to. We read each other, that is how we know when to avoid a friend or not.’ My laughing had subsided by now and my arms were folded in front of my chest (my sides were hurting slightly). ‘Now,’ he continued, having sorted out his mood swing. ‘Are you going to sort your problem out or will I have to deal with him?’

            ‘I’ll do it at some point.’ Walking up to his head, I put one hand on his cheek (or what I thought was his cheek) and patted it a few times. ‘I’ll see you later, don’t forget.’

            ‘Of course not. Now leave me sleep, it’s too nice a day to go flying.’ And with that, I walked back to the town and left him slumbering away with one eye wide open which was very odd to see.

            For the rest of the day, I kept looking over my shoulder; I really, really did not want to bump into Seb, not before I had sorted my head out. I had even sneaked out of the inn early just so I could speak to Frain without him knowing where I’d be. At the moment, I was making my way to Bert’s forgery; he had offered to help me (with some persuasion) with the issue of the mirror in the shop. Having convinced Frain to fly it to some secret spot in the wild, I just needed some chains or rope for him to hook his claws into so he could carry it.

            Bert had little idea of why I was asking him to move a mirror and chain it properly for a dragon to carry. He had offered to look after it for me but I had told him that that wasn’t a good idea and came up with some crazy reason why, yet I couldn’t remember what I had said to him. I had also suggested that we do the whole thing at night to remove suspicious eyes from the equation; he seemed to agree with that. Trouble was that we had to wait until it was completely dark to do much; I was just going to see that he was still alright with helping me.

            As his forge came into view, there was a lot of metallic clanging and a few plumes of black smoke billowing out of the open front. Coughing as the smoke hit my eyes and filled my throat, I waved the air clear in front of me and stepped further inside.

            ‘What is going on?’ I asked.

            I couldn’t see him at first as he was concealed by a smoky cloud. He seemed to be tinkering with his forge. ‘Oh, Carly. I’m just cleaning the chimney shoot. It gets clogged up now and again, but I’m finished now. Did you want something?’ he asked, brushing off the soot from his clothes.

            Saying what I wanted to say, I propped myself against the wall near his anvil.

            ‘Don’t worry about that. Just helping a friend though I still can’t figure out why you can’t just leave it here.’ He chortled shortly but then went to tidy up a pile of tools to one side.

            ‘Well, I’ll see you later then. You seem busy.’ I slipped out just before he turned around and tried to convince me that I was alright to hang around.

            Feeling in a kind of sneaking around sort of mood, I decided to roam along what I would call the back streets of the town. Every town, no matter where you looked, there would always be streets or lanes just like these. They seemed dark and dingy, and the people weren’t all that friendly either; they sort of got used to those they resided amongst and any outsiders seemed totally unwelcome. You could feel the stares from behind curtained windows. On any normal day, or week, I would not consider venturing down these parts but the past week had not been a normal one by any means.

            As I walked down the pathways, I didn’t bow my head nor did I look around too intrigued but I glanced my eyes around here and there to try and not make myself too interesting. Whatever that meant, I had no idea nor did I really know what I was doing but it seemed right that I should be behaving the way I was. Eventually, after a good hour, I made my way back to the main road and, feeling hungry, popped into a small café I found homely.

*****