The creaking of a door woke me up. In the following silence, only Ragnar’s soft snoring came from under my blanket. For minutes, no other audible sounds came from inside Lirithiel’s apartment. Surrounded by that strange silence, I felt nervous even before realizing, that even the city’s soundscape seemed to be missing.
‘What is going on?’
Thinking to myself, I concentrated with closed eyes on every little sound reaching me. Blending out Ragnar’s snore, made me realize that each of my breaths caused the blanking to rise or settle with a near-silent swishing.
‘But why is there no sound from outside the room? Should I stand up and try to…’
“What do you mean, leave the city?” whispered Lirithiel to someone, breaking my train of thought. The addressed person clearly answered her, but somehow kept me from hearing it.
“No, I get that it’s unheard of, but the council only postponed the ceremony until Silverscale’s return, for the councillor to preside over said ceremony.”
“Yes, but a dragon’s contractor coming into the city with an unknown dragon’s hatchling is also unheard of.”
“You sure?”
‘What is she talking about, and with whom?’
“Shit, ok, ok, I convince him, but I…”
“Let me finish, I will go with him. If needed I send a letter to officially quit.”
“You too, and I keep the stone, so you can contact us if needed.”
In the following silence, the soundscape returned, first the occasional shouts of drunkards walking past the house, then slowly the sounds from the market came in, lastly followed by the distant hammering of the dwarven forges.
‘Truly a city that never sleeps’ I thought to myself, unwilling to think about what my friend said. But whatever she talked about, the other side made preparations to prevent anyone else from hearing by applying a spell for a sound-dampening zone, triggered by her picking up the stone she mentioned. That I heard even a small part of it meant, that that person either miscalculated how long it would take to convince Lirithiel or that they didn’t get enough time to prepare.
A chair scratched over wood and quick, soft steps came to the doorframe separating the guest room from the living room. With only a curtain in the frame, the dracorian woman simply pulled it to the side and looked into the dark room. Well, dark meant, that the moon’s thin sickle shone through the window, immersing the room in a faint pale light. It gave adequate lighting to the room for my feline eyes to see, but not for Lirithiel. Her eyes seemed to burn before those flames flowed into them, manifesting into two ember draconic eyes, burning through the surrounding pale light. It hadn’t been long, roughly a month since she learned that, yet she changed only her eyes in a mere second instead of the half-hour she needed back then.
“Oh, you’re already awake.” Sounding genuinely surprised, she still looked for Ragnar. Naturally, she couldn’t find the tiny dragon under my blanket until I stretched my body, as I had slept curled around him. Without me creating a cave under the blanket a little bump showed where he now woke up. The little bump stretched and moved towards the bed’s edge before Ragnar pulled himself free from the covers.
“Wrrrrahhhhhr”, he yawned, visibly drowsy and displeased about the interruption of his rest. His eyes rested on me, judging me for moving too much, to the point, that the mark transferred his dissatisfaction. Having his mood directed at me, it became clear, that he hadn’t noticed Lirithiel, until she cleared her throat, causing him to bolt around, ready to defend himself.
Anything roughly his size, or even a bit bigger, might have been afraid of him, standing on the bedding, his back arched with lightning flashing in his aquatic blue mane down his spine and between his tiny teeth. Just with the size of a large house cat, we saw the week-old dragon only as cute, a fact that only displeased him more.
To soothe him, I softly scratched his chin – what he accepted as compensation – while looking at Lirithiel: “Soooo… Who did you talk to? And don’t say no one, even I know that it takes skill to just dampen sounds instead of cancelling them out completely.”
“How did you… the door woke you, didn’t it?” After my short nod of confirmation, she slowly shook her head. “I really should have oiled those hinges. Not that it matters anymore, I talked to an associate who is worried about…"
“You mean Damian?” I interrupted, naming the only powerful person I knew.
“No… well, technically him too, but he only took part in the end.” She seemed slightly flustered, before remembering something. Looking deep into my eyes she continued whispering. “It’s important that we leave the city, the sooner the better. Your two’s ceremony is on hold and it’s unlikely that you will ever be part of it.”
“What? Why?” I asked, directly followed by Ragnar mimicking me while sounding even more surprised.
“Rrag? Riegh?”
“I explain it after packing, take everything important you kept here or on you. We won’t have a chance to get things we forget.”
Taking the closest bag and simply stuffing my few things here inside, I thought that the priciest things had become fully useless. The simple fact, that I spent 30 gold on jewellery for that ceremony bothered me more than the ceremony being cancelled.
Five minutes later, the bag contained the jewellery, the clothing I had placed in the apartment, and a few toys Damian gifted to Ragnar. Still, roughly half of it had yet to be filled, which Ragnar seemed to be delighted about, as he simply rolled himself up inside and continued sleeping.
Another ten minutes later, I searched the room while wearing my leather armour.
“What are you looking for?” Her voice startled me, not expecting her to finish packing so fast.
“My… my bracelet.” I stuttered while continuing my search by heaving up the betting. “I will not leave without… every other item I would leave here but not that.”
“You mean the old thing you always have around your arm?”
With a quick spin, I grabbed her by the collar and growled. “It’s as much of an OLD THING as that pendant of yours.”
A mixture of fear and sorrow showed in her eyes. She clearly had no intention of hurting me, nor could she have known, what meaning that bracelet held to me and my kind.
“I… I’m sorry. How should you know something I never talked about…”
In the silence after, we searched until Lirithiel found it under the small, barely fitting cabinet by the bed. Objectively spoken, old thing did fit as a description for my bracelet. The roundabout 14-year-old bracelet never got finished. Weaved from a coloured flax yarn into a flat, inch-wide stripe, three glass beads embedded into the middle surrounded by blues and light greens held by the only red yarn. Furthermore, 16 threads hung down from it, resembling a triangle.
After a quick check for damages, I put it around my arm, before nodding to my friend. Three minutes later we had lost sight of the house while walking through dark alleys towards the eastern gate.
For the next half of an hour, neither of us talked while walking, and it took me by surprise when she pushed me into some building’s courtyard.
“What the?”, I hissed. “Were practically at the gates. When they call the guard, we won’t have time to leave this place.”
“And we won’t come far when seen by the guards. While they have yet no reason to hold us, it is likely that they’re already ordered to report and delay our departure as much as possible.”
“But why? What did we do?”
“We? Nothing. But according to my associate, councillor Silverscale ordered to delay your ceremony. Besides him basically being the acting city lord, he is looking for a dragon to bond with since he became a purified Dracori a century before I was born and he’s a racist who hates beast folk. This means he will look for a way to get rid of you.”
“So, some centuries-old, self-loving noble don’t like me but wants Ragnar?”
“That’s just part of the problem but basically yes. Now silent, the guards should change soon, and at night most neglect their duty at that time to take a quick drink with the other shift.”
Her eyes stopped glowing, and she grabbed my left hand. “You need to guide me, I can’t see and stay hidden.”
After a short irritation, I realized that only the thin crescent moon scarcely shone onto the eastern district. To her normal eyes and those of most, the whole district must look like faint shapes in the darkness. With my feline eyes accustomed to the dark, I risked a quick glimpse out of our hiding place; to see that even the in gate’s large braziers not a single ember showed its glow. Just a single torch in a poor guard’s hand, staring into the night, tried to oppose the darkness, yet not bright enough to reach either of the gate’s walls.
‘Why does this feel too good to be real? As long as we keep our steps silent, we could just walk through the gate, and nobody would notice.’
Lirithiel pulled me back before I found an answer. “Hey, stay inside till it’s time, we’re in the elven district.”
Angry at myself, that I forgot about the elves, giving a simple reason for the missing lighting. Unlike most other species, the city-elves wouldn’t bother with the darkness. Their eyes perceived mana instead of light and even normal flames would disturb the mana's carefully crafted flow within their district, so they got a law to prevent those close to their homes.
“Ever wondered what flowing mana looks like?”
Despite barely breathing my question, I felt her hand grabbing my neck’s pelt, followed by a hissed: “Concentrate. We’re lucky that no city-elf would willingly become a guard unless they’re punished with it. And the last I knew about left the guard two years ago.”
After that, silence once again fell upon us, with only our breaths and hearts making sounds. We waited for what felt like hours, even though the moon hadn’t moved an inch when a patrol of four with two torches walked past us, just six feet or so away. Once, their steps got far enough, I took another glimpse. The guards just reached the gate and as Lirithiel anticipated, all five guards went inside the gate’s guardroom. Quickly but trying to stay silent, we crossed the small square in front of the gate, and into its shadow opposite of the guardroom. The guards inside jested and laughed loud enough for us to hear parts of some dirty story about someone’s privates. I couldn’t help shaking my head, none of my race could ever comprehend those human races’ fascination for genitals.
‘Understanding it isn’t needed, when it frees us the way’, I thought and led my friend through the gate, out of the city’s walls. It felt like a no-brainer to keep following the wall until being further away from the gate, it even would have been a good idea if not for the fact, that this led us north. With Lirithiel near blind in the dark and myself concentrated on potential pursuers, we recognized the first tree just before bumping into it.
“Hey, we reached the forest. You can use your transformation again.”
Just like back in her apartment, a quick flame turned her eyes into those of a dragon. Knowing, that we should be too far away for pursuers to be seen, I looked around, thinking about the best way to get to my hut, two hours west of the city, just to remember, why they stopped clearing the forest along the northern wall. Freezing there for a second, before an insect crept around a tree’s trunk into a faint ray of moonlight got me moving. Grabbing Lirithiel’s wrist I fled. The only important thing was getting away from these parts of the woods and luckily, my friend followed me else the flight would have ended before it began.
By the time we stopped, we not only had passed the east gate but made it the first quarter to the southern gate. And we only stopped, because I fell, unable to take another step and gasping for air from exhaustion. She only looked better by a little, breathing unsteadily with her sweaty clothes sticking despite the fresh night.
“Why… why did… did we ru… run?”, she managed to ask.
“North… Home… Queen… Bugs”
Despite the incomplete sentence, she knew what I meant. Well, other than me, she already lived three decades ago, when that queen of bugs first appeared in the city’s north. While neither of us actually knew what a queen of bugs was, only a few people didn’t know, that the country rather closed a larger trading route than fighting it. A fact that instilled enough fear in every rightminded person to rather be save by believing every rumour about it, like that she can see and act through every insect in her territory.
“Did you… saw her?”
While waiting for my answer, Lirithiel’s breath slowly steadied, and she already stretched again before she answered it for herself. “Let me guess, you ran the moment you saw an insect. Thank Fräylis that you reacted quickly.”
After roughly five minutes, she pulled water and dried meat from her bag, while I finally managed to sit up and not fall onto my side. With a smile on her face, she pushed a stripe of meat into my maw. “Never thought I’d see you run ‘till you fall over.”
Her voice and jesting felt like we just stopped an exercise on the training fields, a familiar voice from our first year working together. But nowadays she’d only used it, to distract either or both of us from an oppressive atmosphere of any kind. And no one would need deviation or telepathy to know, that she didn’t care about our flight or its reason.
After washing down the meat with a sip of water, I asked her the question I had since I overheard the conversation.
“Why did you come with me?”
Her puzzled face almost made me lose track of my own thoughts, almost enough to prevent me from asking further, but just almost.
“It’s been three years since I left the guard and the city, only visiting every month or so and now you suddenly decide - seemingly on a whim - to leave with me. I know that the situation is different, but you still have your own goals in the city. So why?”
“Well…” she started with a shy voice as if I caught her doing something bad. “Don’t be mad but I… didn’t come with you but Ragnar.”
Now it was my turn to be stunned. How did I forget about him being the biggest change? After a solid minute of me licking my chest and shoulders unsure, how to react, she started explaining: “I don’t know if you’re disappointed or mad at me, but I know that you’ll need a dracori or another race with a dragon-ancestry to raise him. And within the city, it won’t be hard to find a willing person, since every partly draconic being will benefit from just being near an actual living dragon. And we know each other for long, so I thought that…”
“I’m not mad. Also not disappointed, at least not in you. I just didn’t expect you to be this direct with the truth. Also, I forgot that it’s only five days since Ragnar and I met.” I looked up to think over my next words, just to see the moon beyond its zenith. “Well, six days as it seems. Not that it’s important, because you’re probably right. The jeweller was a special situation, but that we will need help with his emotions is bound to happen again. Hells, when you wake us up I felt his opinion about waking him up and wanted to growl at myself for a second.”
Her eyes brightened as she heard my words, literally to the point that I had to look away.
“Hey, turn down the lights were not that far from the walls. And there will be conditions for living with us.”
“Conditions?” she asked, while her magic faded, and her eyes turned back into those of a half-elf.
“I can’t feed all three of us, or rather it will become impossible for me. I can’t remember most of that book’s content, but one thing I remember is, that Ragnar will eat for four before he can hunt for himself.”
“So, your condition is that I find a new way to make money? Isn’t that a given?”
“No. What use is a way? Didn’t you come to stay near Ragnar and help me with him? You must learn to live like me, this means hunting, gathering, and working as a mercenary guide.”
“Wouldn’t it be enough to become a sellsword?”
“No”, I growled. “And don’t mention those lunatics in any tavern with relation to the Mercs-Guild. Guys like the Sellswords are the reason that they founded the guild. To become a guildmember one needs the approval of a current member, who is allowed to train a newcomer. And that…”
“Wait a moment”, she interrupted. “We want to hide, becoming part of an organisation is the opposite of hiding.”
“And that means you need a training period.” She stared at me, for ignoring her argument. I felt strange, that she looked down at me, as I still sat on the ground while she stood next to me. I reached up to her. “Mind giving me a hand? I’ll explain why it’s better for both of us to be part of the guild.”
She put me back on my feed all by herself. Something I felt grateful for, as my leg still felt weak.
“Seems that eight minutes aren’t enough rest for you. So still a normal mortal, huh?” Lirithiel teased me.
“Still a normal mortal, but with a goal, and that is the Dragon’s Watch Post. There we can rest. Do you happen to have a silver?”
Now she looked like I had lost my mind, but she still checked her pockets, to find a silver coin. With those I had hidden in my food guard, we had more than enough.
“Great, let’s continue my explanation there. It might help to clarify my point since the place is run by the Guild.”
Walking most of the way with her help and fuelled by the stubbornness of simply not wanting to camp or break into one of the outskirts' houses’ barns to sleep, we reached the tavern six hours later, shortly after sunrise, feeling like our legs were going to fall off. Stumbling through the door, I showed two silvers to the barkeeper, who tapped three times against the second barrel behind him. After a short nod, we stumbled to the second backroom, where we put our bags on the table before falling into two of the armchairs. We got six hours for our 2 silvers and spent the first four sleeping.
“So, now what is the advantage of becoming a guild member?”
We just started to eat a late breakfast, so it felt like it came out of the blue. Staring at the simple stew and bitter tea, normally served for drunkards to sober up, I hoped to find the words I couldn’t remember. When she reached under my chin it startled me first, but the short shock helped me.
“The advantage, of course. First of all, most actually good contracts are handled by the guild, and selling loot can be done by them, with a ten percent fee, but it’s good for us who shouldn’t enter the city. Second is, that we can rent private rooms like this for three hours per silver, a quarter of the normal price. And last, for crimes with guildmembers as suspects, the guild can choose to investigate and punish instead of the officials, thanks to a contract every city with a local guild tavern has signed.”
“And why is this better than hiding?”
I took a bite before answering, taking more time than she seemed willing to give, as her right hand closed in on my chin again. She knew I didn’t like that, since my body always acted on its own, pressing into her hand when scratched there.
“They can’t simply pull either of us out of here by simply accusing us of a crime. Besides, whoever this Silverscale sends will find us, unless we don’t leave the woods for centuries or travel north to the lands of Frozen Rivers.”
“Ok, but are you sure the guild will protect you this way? And what are the lands of Frozen Rivers? A myth or something like that?”
“The lands of Frozen Rivers are the territory my miar used to claim, when… It doesn’t ma…”
“Wait your Miar? Isn’t that the name of the catlike beast-races?”
“No, Miar actually translates to; A place to live, love, hate, and forgive. Humans just called us Miar because neither of the human-likes can pronounce the correct name and I got used to being called and calling myself a Miar. In its correct meaning, the sixteen Miars are the largest social groups we have, each consisting of many clans, which again consist of several bloodlines, as you’d call these, even though it doesn’t follow your social principles of those. Not that you’d need this knowledge unless we meet them in the eternal hunting fields that is.”
After eating another spoonful of stew, I shook my head. “Back to our topic. The Merc-Guild will help me. If not for the principle of being a completely neutral group protecting its members, then because I’m their only guide willing to enter the deeper woods in the northwest. Something about the druids casting curses on intruders or so, but they're actually peaceful people, as long as one respects nature's ways and doesn’t take much more than they need.”
“And other guides don’t know this?” She clearly doubted my words, but I felt the same when first hearing about the problem.
Remembering my first days with a purr, I answered. “Technically speaking, they do know. It’s just, that many already broke the rules at some point, and the rest refuses to risk it.”
While shaking her head, she turned to her own breakfast, and a few seconds later, we heard Ragnar burping. While we talked, he had basically drunk his own potion of stew, now lying on his back holding his visibly stuffed belly. A bit worried about him I concentrated on the mark, and realized, that - despite his bloated belly- he felt genuinely happy after eating.
“As cute as he is… Let us talk about me joining the guild.” My friend got back to the topic. “Tonight, you told me that I have to become a guide, why?”
“Truthfully speaking, starting as one is enough. One rule for newcomers is, that they spent at least one year as trainees. It’s basically just a trial to see if a person fits with the guild’s rules, and once you're recognized as a full member, you can choose any position and only need to pass a small test, mostly a duel against another member of the chosen profession.” My eyes wandered to the now sleeping dragon on the table. “Just a decade or so, and I could become a dragon rider.” Looking back towards her, I purred: “Not that there would be one to test me within the guild.”
“So that training year is why I must become a guide?” Her face showed a strange mixture of doubt and disappointment. “Couldn’t you just become a Warrior or Archer? For the past two and a half years, when visiting the city, you’d carry that rapier and bow of you.”
Scratching myself behind the ear, imitating human behaviour to show embarrassment, I murmured: “Apparently the rapier makes me look more professional.”
“What now?” She questioned in utter disbelief.
“My trainer told me, that having no visible melee weapon is only for those martial artists ok. I have no idea how to use a rapier properly, besides –” I pulled my rapier and held it in front of her – “as you can see, the blade is just long enough to hold it inside the sheath.”
From the rapier’s handle and wrist guard, roughly one and a half inches, remained of the broken weapon’s blade, turning it into a fancy food pick.
“It was my trainer’s weapon. That day I learned two things. First, never fight with a weapon you’re not trained with. And second, surviving a situation your trainer couldn’t is the shortcut to the guild’s membership, if the mission itself got finished. Of course, killing the trainer and completing the mission afterwards is not an option, we’re mercenaries, not murderers.”
She nodded. “No Warrior, I should have known. What about Archer? On the guard’s training ground, you always got a few good shots.”
“Compared to guards, I’m not bad. But mercenary-Archers carry longbows, shooting precisely at least 300 feet, some shot at a distance of 600 with a terrifying hit rate.” Seeing her confused face, I realized, that she just didn’t know, how the guild’s categories worked, and that she couldn’t have. “You might have meant, that I should become a skirmisher. The guild used that term for everyone, who can fight and do more than aimlessly swing a weapon. The other fighter categories are for highly specialized people.”
“And you’re a guide, so you are specialized in…?” Stretching the ‘in’, she indirectly asked me to finish her sentence, but I had to think myself.
“Honestly, I never thought about that. Not that it would matter, since guides aren’t part of the fighters but the supporters. Another thing about the Guild’s structure is, that it’s separated into three groups with their own roles and conditions for those. Besides the Fighters and Supporters, there are the — less fortunate named — Specialists. While the first two are somewhat self-explaining, the Specialists are a group consisting of people, who are needed in rare events like a siege or a Werewolf hunt.”
“Aaand you want me to become a supporter because I have such a soft touch?”
My fur rose along my entire body, just remembering the last time she had to show her soft touch and some finesse.
“Hells no. No no no. We keep it with the guards’ rule. You don’t even try first aid unless you’re the last one able to. That man could have kept his foot.”
She pouted and I licked my fur to calm down, answering her question a minute later.
“Besides the one-yearlong training period, for a personal reason, I can’t join the fighters. And please don’t ask, while my past can’t rest, I lack the courage to face it.”
“But after that year I can challenge the test for a role within the Fighters? I just have to limit myself to mission alongside you, right?”
With a simple nod to confirm, I rose from the seat and went to the door. “I’ll go get the application form. Unless you have a better idea.”
“No, but if you vouch for me, will I finally see your actual name?”
With an amused flick of my tail, I slipped to the door.
To the people reading this Story: I’d like to read your thoughts about this and will be thankful for every comment. I am already aware that I have the following two problems because English is not my native language, but I wish to learn how to better myself:
A. That I’m aware that my English-skills are a mix of the British and American English. I just don’t know what word is from the American and which is from the British.
B. The use of punctuation, especially the use of quotation marks when switching back and forth between the narrator and the spoken word, is probably a bit unusual for native speakers, as I unfortunately only really know it in my native language and am not sure about the rules in English.
The first four chapters are fully published with this, and I need to warn you that I’m a slow writer and this is a secondary project of mine, so it might take some time for future chapters. (This fourth chapter literally took me a year of writing and rewriting.)
Copyrights: The initial Idea for the story’s beginning came with this Pinterest-Post, where my first draft is to be found in its comments. The World and Story are by me. Another site to read the story: Wattpad
