Page 29 of Monsters of Air

Oh, goody, yet another thing I don’t know.

“He means bigger. Like an elk or a moose.” Philit poked the fire to keep it blazing. I blinked at him and he sighed. “Think like your horse but bigger, they have horns and lots of meat. Game will be sparse the closer to the peak we get so we want to hunt now if we don’t want to starve. Of course, we could always leave you behind and fly the rest of the way.”

Philit leaned forward and gave me the same look he had for the last few days of this journey, like all of this was my fault. I scowled at him. I really hoped this trend of getting more irritated the further he escorted me up the mountain didn’t continue.

“Yeah, I get it. The poor, weak female is responsible for all your problems.” I narrowed my eyes at him, thankfully he didn’t fight me.

The corner of his mouth twitched before he sat back, clearly thinking he was on a chair. He almost toppled over, his arms and legs flailing before his wings caught him.

He snarled and winced as he righted himself, giving me one last glare before he went back to poking the fire as if nothing had happened. Prideful dragon.

At least Landers enjoyed the show, although he wasn’t nearly successful at disguising a laugh as a cough.

Thankfully, Zilon returned rather quickly, dragging a giant elk behind him. I had seen elk before, but none like this.

The creature was not just the muted brown I was used to, its back was covered in brown-on-brown stripes and his elongated head was crowned with massive curly horns. He was beautiful, and very dead.

“This should get us over the pass,” Zilon announced, plopping the animal down beside the fire. “If we cook it, it should last. Dry as much of it out as we can.”

I had helped butcher animals all my life on the farm, so it didn’t bother me to watch Zilon clean the animal. I had helped with butchering pigs and cows. Though Landers began looking uncomfortable and he had trouble looking Zilon’s way.

It was oddly satisfying watching him struggle.

“Too rich for this?” I asked, as I slid the knife from my pack over the elks flank, the flesh separating in a clean line. Landers was quickly turning a shade of green, it didn’t look good with the red of his scales.

He glared at me, but I just grinned at him. He had been tossing small barbs at me all day, now it was my turn.

“I’m too rich for any of this, little farm girl.” Even his voice was choked.

“Sad. How will you ever survive in the wild as a dragon?” I grinned at him, slicing through the animal with a bigger flourish as letting the leg fall away from the whole.

Philit and Zilon laughed as Landers hightailed it toward the trees, the green on his face having reached dangerous levels.

I felt bad for him, but couldn’t stop grinning. Finally, something I could kick some ass at. At least I could keep Landers fed, which really seemed like quite the victory.

“How was it for you? When you woke up as a rider?” Zilon asked after a minute and Landers had moved far enough away we couldn’t hear him retching.

“Me?” I asked, slicing through another cut of meat and handing it to Philit who was stacking them around the fire to dry and cook.

Zilon nodded. “Yeah. We know how it is when we have our first shift into our dragon, but we don’t know anything about riders.”

I bit my lip, resisting the urge to point out that they didn’t know everything either. Stubborn dragons.

“There was nothing fancy. Nothing flashy. I was baling hay and took a nap in the hay loft. When Da found me and woke me up, my hair was white. Ta da!” I shook my hands in the air like I had done some kind of magic trick.

“That’s it. You didn’t explode in light or fart sparkles? Nothing?” Philit looked up from his meat stacking to stare at me.

“Not really,” I shook my head, “I’ve been having dreams about dragons for years, though. I don’t know if that counts as special.” The kids back home certainly thought it meant something. Special was not the word they had used. “Wait. There was one dream…” my heart actually started to pound more at the memory. Like I was still scared of it. “I remember a lot of darkness, all around. It felt like I was falling. I tried screaming, but I couldn’t hear myself. I was so sure I was screaming… but then roared. After today, I knew it was dragons. Roaring all around me. There was something in the darkness to reach for. I tried too. But Da woke me up before I could reach it.”

“Sounds creepy,” Landers said, I had been so lost in the memory I hadn’t realized he had come back. He swayed on the rock across from me, away from the meat. He didn’t seem as green, thankfully.

“What happened when you woke up?” Philit asked, taking the next slab of meat I handed him.

“Nothing much, I just had white hair.” I grabbed my hair, looking at the white strands, the way it caught the color of the fire, it almost looked like it had some red in it. Weird considering my original color was brown. “What about you guys? How was it for your first shift?”

“I was home when it happened,” Zilon said in a soft voice, his knife freezing mid cut as he stared at the fire. The distance between us suddenly felt way too far, like nothing would ever bridge the gap. He was so distant as he talked, his voice flatter. “It was almost dinner time. We were celebrating.” He paused, shrugged, and then went back to cutting, not looking at any of us.

“That sounds boring,” Landers said and I could have sworn Zilon snarled.

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