Page 252 of The Wild Prince's Favorite
Kassein and his sister exchanged a few words, out of which Alezya only briefly caught the words “dragon,” “Kein,” and “flight.”
“Kassein?” Alezya asked, perplexed.
Without explaining, he suddenly began grabbing the different bags of supplies he could find around the cave, Tievin talked to their senior fighters quickly, and Keira stepped away, leaving Alezya utterly confused.
In fact, it took several minutes for her and the other people around to understand what the Dragon Clan was doing. Bit by bit, they were gathering all the supplies outside, and wrapping it all up with tight ropes.
The powerless clanspeople were left to watch as slowly, a little mountain of supplies was assembled, almost everything but their weapons and coats. Then, when Alezya was leftstanding outside staring at all their stuff, the twins came back to her side, looking just as confused.
“What’s going on?” Ekut exclaimed. “They walked in, and their men started gathering our food and everything! Our men are nervous!”
“They know we need that stuff, right?” Ekata frowned.
“I-I’m not sure yet,” Alezya admitted.
Out of nowhere, Kein arrived, along with Kiki, and all of a sudden, it became clear to Alezya.
“The dragons,” she said. “They’re going to make the dragons carry our supplies!”
“What? Really?”
“I just explained to them about the journey and all. I was nervous they hadn’t understood, but I think they plan to make the dragons carry all of our stuff!”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Ekut blinked. “They left everyone their weapons and cloaks.”
“It’s going to save everyone a lot of time and energy if the dragons can carry all this around,” Alezya gasped.
She walked up to Kassein, who took her hands.
“Kein take it and fly?” she asked to confirm.
“Kiki too,” Kassein nodded.
Did that mean dragons could carry this much weight? She’d had doubts upon seeing the mountain of supplies, but divided between Kein and Kiki and knowing the distance would be short for them, it didn’t seem impossible. She was certain they were smart enough to make multiple trips if needed.
She smiled at Kassein, already feeling better. This was going to be helpful in keeping everyone’s spirits up if they didn’t have to worry about hauling heavy loads.
“I guess that means we’re all ready for tomorrow, then,” Ekata shrugged. “I’ll inform everyone to sort out what they want to carry and what they want to leave to the dragons, and weshould have a nice dinner; we’ll need the energy and all the extra sleep we can get tonight.”
“I’ll organize the night watch with one of their senior warriors,” Ekut said. “We should start working with them and get ready.”
“Can I help?” Alezya asked.
“You can rest,” Ekata winked. “Let the men do the work for once.”
Alezya didn’t feel like resting much though, so while everyone got busy inside, she took Kassein along with her to go hunting and pick herbs for dinner. She showed him the kind of traps she usually built to catch small prey, herbs she picked, and which were poisonous. She didn’t have time to wait for prey to fall into her trap, but luckily and to everyone’s delight, the dragons showed up with freshly killed prey for the humans to share, and kept going out to hunt, again and again, as if they’d decided to feed the entire group of humans, until they eventually stayed and ate their own share.
“There’s enough meat for everyone,” Ekata remarked with a shocked expression.
“That’s life with the Dragon Clan,” Alezya beamed, petting Kein for its good job.
Thus, they had to find a large clearing to make a fire big enough to cook it all, and there was a continuous stream of meat-filled plates being delivered from there to inside the caves they were occupying.
Alezya and Kassein isolated themselves in a corner to eat, but soon enough, everyone had to gather and crowd the caves as a heavy downpour started outside, ending the cooking session and forcing everyone to run back inside with the last plates.
Despite the terrible weather and the prospect of the battle, Alezya noticed the morale was good; men were delighted to havemeat for dinner, and since the word had spread they wouldn’t have a heavy load to carry, their confidence had climbed too.
Even more shocking, the Dragon Clan’s fighters seemed to be making a conscious effort to try and mix with the other clans. She spotted Dajan nearby, laughing with a bunch of men and women from the Munsa Clan as they all made wide gestures to understand each other. The Samial Clan Chief and Ekut were also seated with one of the Dragon Clan’s senior warriors, and she was fairly certain they were talking strategy. Kiera was apparently having a blast defeating some of the fighters in arm wrestling, and Tievin was talking to other people from the Northern clans, visibly teaching them more words and learning some of theirs.
