Page 53 of No Ordinary Drakeling
“Are you happy here?” Tiri asked.
“Sometimes,” Ellery answered honestly. “But mostly I am scared. It is very daunting to be an emperor, and I have not had any time to talk to Chrysander. Though I am glad to have him and be out of my village.”
“Somebody in that fucking kitchen messed up,” Zane grumbled as he walked into the kitchen. “They sent up three elven meals, so I guess I’m eating fruit for breakfast.”
Tiri pursed his lips. “That’s a very naughty word,” he scolded.
Ellery nearly laughed at the incredulous look on Zane’s face. “Sorry, Tiri,” he offered as he handed them their meals.
When Tiri lifted the metal lid, his eyes went wide with surprise. “Is this for one person? I’ve never seen this much food on a plate, and I don’t know what any of these things are.”
“You don’t have to eat anything you don’t like,” Zane replied.
Ellery speared a piece of pineapple with his fork. “We need to figure out some things.”
Zane grunted in agreement. “I’m going to call Madeline D’Vairedraconis to handle the rings and crowns.”
“I can’t pay for mine,” Tiri complained.
“No money is necessary. Madeline will refuse to charge me because you’re now a D’Vaire,” Zane returned. “So don’t worry about it.”
“Elven D’Vaire could handle making Tiri a cloak of your dragonskin,” Ellery suggested. “I doubt the elves at D’Vaire would charge if you got it through their company.”
“Great idea,” Zane said.
“What if we bought some material, Tiri? Then you could make more outfits for yourself, so you would have things to wear when we went to the Main Assembly Hall,” Ellery commented.
“Before Tiri starts arguing, where’s he going to be spending his days?” Zane inquired.
“Tiri, if you could spend your day doing whatever you want, what would you fill it with?” Ellery asked.
“This red stuff is delicious. I would sew. I do like to make clothing. I’d feel selfish only making things for myself, though.”
“Those are strawberries,” Zane supplied. “You can start branching out to other people when you have at least one outfit for each day of the week and fancier stuff for the evenings.”
“Fancier stuff?”
“We have many events we have to attend, and you’ll need to be wearing the nicest sprite stuff you can think up,” Zane responded.
“Sprites wear the same thing for every event.”
A vein jumped on Zane’s forehead. “Help me out here, Ellery.”
“Perhaps you could use silk to make evening attire,” Ellery suggested. It was the best he could do; he hated making clothes, which stifled his creativity on the subject but the Valzadari wore it, so surely it could work for Tiri too. He imagined that the patchwork ensemble Tiri was wearing would be stunning in any fabric.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“We will show you at the fabric store,” Ellery assured him.
“They have whole stores of fabric?”
“You can buy stuff online too,” Zane added.
“On line? What does that mean?”
“You know what? Forget I mentioned it. We’ll get there but not in the next hour,” Zane said.
“I still don’t know how to pay for fabrics. I couldn’t bring my needle and thread either. I don’t know how precious those things are, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the workshop with them, so they must be very costly.”
