Page 24 of Dragon Keeper
“Oh, that is very diplomatic of you.” Sloan chuckled, his amusement catching up with him in a hurry, surprised him a little bit. He had always been sort of a serious type of dragon. “Riley will learn, and I promise you that he will not set any more fires if I can help it.”
“Hmm, I’m not so much worried about the next fire. I think that the next crisis will be him squabbling with a couple of the young bucks I saw him chest thumping with at the tavern last night.”
“Damn, he was at the tavern again?” Riley was really searching for entertainment. He was used to being able to find places to go even if they were out in the middle of nowhere and have a couple of hours of companionship and forgetfulness. He was finding that challenging here because everybody knew everybody’s business.
“He’ll learn. If he doesn’t, one of us older dragons will teach him a slight lesson. I hope that won’t be a problem?”
“No, Brayden and I have tried over the years, and we’re his brothers. It really just rolls off his back like water off a duck.”
“And what is a duck? I do not think I have seen this. Is it like the chickens?”
“Not exactly. Ducks are birds like the chickens, but they are water birds and they fly but they also swim really well, and they have this waxy coating to their feathers that keeps them from getting waterlogged. Sort of like the birds that I’ve seen swimming in the lake as I fly over.” They had seemed pretty much like ducks, though larger.
“Yes! Those birds, I’m told, arrived during a veil crossing some thousand years ago. Maybe longer. We never knew what to call them so we gave them a name. They are orelas.”
“I like that. We call them ducks, but that’s okay. We can learn to call them orelas.” In fact, he was learning that there were new names for lots of things that seemed familiar. There was a lot of crossover between Lunastra and Earth, except that the magic here was so strong that it was really taking some getting used to.
“They are lovely creatures.” Cade sighed. “This is very good mead. I assume that Tyr brewed it.”
They were sitting outside at a little stand at the edge of the village, eating pies and drinking said mead.
“I think so, yes. This actually tastes like an outer hive. It’s spicy.” He was learning the bees so fast.
Cade slapped his hand on the table. “I am so glad to see you taking an interest in Tyr’s hives. He’s been a bit lonely for some time.”
“That’s sad, but I adore him, so he’s not lonely any longer.”
Cade nodded, seeming very pleased for his friend. “He needed someone to focus mainly on him. Please love him as he deserves.”
“I will.” That was a solemn vow. “I brought my brothers here because of him, and one wasn’t sure he wanted to come.”
“I believe that Riley will find his place here. The younger dragons will take him in, and soon he will be loving his life.”
“I hope so. Should I have Tyr introduce me to his sister’s family?”
Cade nodded to him. “That would be wise. He and Aleana are very close, and he cares for her very much.”
“And his brother?” He was desperately curious to know the situation there, but Tyr never seemed interested in discussing it.
“Tyr and his twin were so close, and they had a terrible row. For all they were born together and raised together, there are not two more different dragons in all of Lunastra.”
Twins? That surprised him. “Is he unkind?”
Cade shook his head immediately, and that made Sloan feel better. Tyr was so decent; he’d hate to know his twin was a bastard. “No, no, no. Tyr’s so in tune with nature that his entire world ebbs and flows with the bees and the sun and the honey. In the winter, he is lazy and jolly and often visits. But in the summer, he is busy, constantly working from dawn to dusk and then sleeping. You must know this.”
Sloan nodded. He was well aware. There were days that he felt like he barely saw Tyr, but he couldn’t complain, because Tyr was obviously so happy and so busy.
“Tor is pure magic,” Cade continued after another long swig of mead. “The seasons mean nothing to him. Nature means nothing to him. He is a sorcerer, and I believe he feels as if Tyr is wasting his talents by being a beekeeper. I think that if Tor saw Tyr now, after so many years, see how he’s growing his hives and how he’s created this amazing life for himself? Then Tor would understand. But.” Cade shrugged. “That is neither here nor there. He is in the city, and Tyr will not go to the city.”
“I can understand that.” Of course, he’d never seen the cities here—and he was curious, desperately—but he could understand Tyr not going, even if they weren’t the size of cities that he had seen, like Denver, for instance. He couldn’t imagine his sweet gentle beekeeper in a city surrounded by thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dragons.
Cade smiled at him. “Yes. I imagine that you do understand. No. Tyr is special and needs to be with his bees. They have bonded, and their health is tied to his.”
“Yes.” He still felt so bad about the ones Tyr had lost due to his stubbornness. Well, due to his indulging Riley’s stubbornness. But Riley was his baby brother, and he protected his brothers, often to his own detriment.
He was still learning about having a mate.
“You are going to figure this out, Sloan. Poe still has moments of confusion, and he was not nearly as in the modern world as you all were. Your Riley is like the Cuelebres. Puck and Andy and Jules.”
