Page 18 of Consorting with Dragons

As I came back down the ramp after getting a look at the new hatchling, I noticed two things. First of all, Rylan was on the gangway ahead of me, being moved off the ship, but somehow, he had spilled out of the chair he was being transported in, and now he was on the ground and looked upset.Damn it!Was he hurt again? He had his head down and his face buried in his hands, and I panicked. I began running toward him, literally knocking people out of my way in my haste to get to him.

I saw a golden blur pass me by at a speed that made me feel like I was backing up. It was the little dragon racing by me and over to Rylan, plopping down squarely in his lap. The dragon started rubbing his head against Rylan’s face and chest, while Rylan looked down at him in complete and utter shock. I ran over, too, intending to pull the vetami away, but it was far too late. The hatchling was licking Rylan’s face, his long, pink tongue rasping over his skin and paying close attention to the bruises on his face, licking each one thoroughly as if to heal them.

As for Rylan—he was looking down at the little dragon in fascination and delight. Instead of pushing him away, he was patting his head.

I heard the dragon say, quite plainly, “Why are you so sad?” in a high-pitched, thin voice.

Rylan’s mouth dropped open in complete shock, as well it should have. We knew that vetamiscould“talk” to each other, or more accurately, they could communicate with each other with sounds if it was truly necessary, but as a general rule, they simply didn’t. And they almost made sounds to us.

It wasn’t even exactly speech. They usually made a murmuring noise. Just like this little one had made, come to think of it, only in a low voice and only to each other, so wehad no idea what they were saying. Only this time we could understand quite plainly.

There were no actual words or any sounds that could be construed as such. They seemed to make these noises to each other only when they were mating, or when the females were communicating with their offspring, and they seemed to understand each other. There had even been times when I was praising my dragon or giving him a squeeze or a pat when I was particularly pleased at how well he’d performed, and he had made a murmuring sound to me. My dragon didn’t speak to me, though. Not in any language I recognized, anyway.

This little dragon, however, was speaking actual words. Or…was he? Though the vetami had been clearly communicating in what I perceived to be actual language, when I tried to recall the exact words he’d used just moments before, the memory had already faded. Yet, at the time, I had understood the little golden dragon perfectly clearly. And he had spoken in my own language.

Rylan was gazing down at the dragon in pure delight.

“Are youtalkingto me? That’s so incredible. How are you doing that?”

How indeed? To be able to actually talk, any living creature had to coordinate his lips, jaw, tongue and larynx all at the same time. The hatchling’s mouth had moved up and down a little, but his “lips” were reptilian and therefore incapable of forming words—not to mention his thin forked tongue. Did dragons even have voice boxes? None of this made any sense at all.

The little dragon tipped his head to the side and spoke to Rylan again. “Why are you so sad?”

Rylan smiled again and looked straight up at me. “He’s talking to me. In Moravian!”

“What? No, it was Horvathian. I heard him—he wants to know why you’re sad.”

“Yes, I know. I heard him too, but itwasmy language. I’m absolutely sure it was Moravian, and I don’t know any Horvathian. Wait a minute—does anyone know about this? That the dragons on this moon can speak? I know there are a few other non-humanoid species that communicate with a type of speech, but I never knew there were any in this part of the galaxy. Does King Davos know? He’ll be amazed. Blake will probably want one of them!”

“What are you talking about, Rylan?”

He was excited and I’m not sure if he even knew what he was saying, because he obviously was remembering things, but why was he so interested in what King Davos of all people might know anyway? And who was this Blake? There was a lot to unpack here, but it would have to wait—one emergency at a time.

He was still petting the vetami’s head as my men watched in a state of shock. “You’re so clever,” he said to the hatchling, who continued to stare back up at him.

I’d definitely heard the little dragon speaking Horvathian that last time, while Rylan insisted it was Moravian. It occurred to me that the only logical explanation was that the creature must be doing this with some form of telepathy. Had he planted the words in my head somehow? In a way that he knew I would understand? And in Rylan’s mind too, at the exact same time, only Rylan heard the words in his own language. If so, it was an amazing trick and could have far-reaching potential.

It wasn’t completely unprecedented. My own dragon had once used a form of telepathy with me once when I was a new rider, long ago, so I had actually known it was possible for dragons. Although up to now, I’d always thought it had been a quarter desperation and three quarters my overactive imagination in my thinking that he had really talked to me. Gods, I hadn’t thought about it in years.

It had happened when we were fighting in the Narvathian Mountains, and under attack by a ship directing firing at us. My dragon, whose name was Sulamon, named after one of the finest Marshal Generals the Riders had ever known, turned his head to look back at me and told me there was a shallow cave ahead on the left that we could hide in, its entrance hidden by foliage., “Until the bad ones go away,” he’d told me.

He communicated the thought to me not with words, but by a kind of thought transference. I remember being shocked by it at the time, though my old trainer had told me that dragons could be telepathic and would communicate in that way when they really needed to. I hadn’t fully believed him at the time.

Sulamon told me plainly in my head that day that the opening to this cave was covered by vegetation, but he knew it was there, and if we hid inside it, the ones chasing us couldn’t see us to fire at us. I heard him quite clearly, and I called out for him to fly there as I pulled on his reins to redirect him.

We made it just as the ship dived at us and my clever dragon flew straight into what looked like the side of the mountain as I clung to his neck. I had a moment of doubt as we soared into what looked like a solid rock face, but I buried my face in the warm scales on his neck and we soared through the vegetation there, which was indeed hidden by foliage. The dragon’s long, slim body was a tight fit, but he made it with me clinging to him, and inside it was much larger and the ceiling was so high I could barely see it. The ship tried to follow us in, but crashed into the cliffside, unable to fit through the mouth of the cave. We watched it bounce off the rocks and spiral down to the valley below, where it burst into flames.maneuver and his communication to me had saved our lives.

“You’re very nice to ask me why I’m upset,” Rylan was saying to the little dragon, “but please don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Igot hurt a few days ago, but I’m feeling better. I was just thinking about my family all of a sudden.”

“Wait,” I said, interrupting him. “Your memory returned? You remember your family now?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling up at me through the tears still trembling on those thick eyelashes. “And I got a little overwhelmed. I remembered the attack too.”

At the appearance of a slight wobble of his chin and fresh tears springing to his eyes, the little dragon licked his face again and literally glared at me, as if I were the one making him upset. He gave me a look of such reproach that it startled a laugh from me.

He turned back to Rylan and looked up at him again. “I’m very hungry. Can you feed me now?”

Rylan looked to me in surprise, and I shrugged. “They like to eat as soon as they hatch. I’ll get him some food.”

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