Dragon Fey - Mara DragonClaw (best free ebook reader .txt) 📗

quite as badly, Aria could get a better look at him. He was about six inches tall, with sandy blonde hair and tan skin. The scales on his wings were fiery with reds and oranges. Flashes of gold showing in the sun, though the thing that drew Aria’s attention most was the black spots that mared the surface of his left wing.

Wing rot! Aria had seen many fairies with it, and the holes it was burning through this boy’s wing were unmistakable. She hadn’t thought that wings like her’s could ever get it, but here was someone with wings just like her’s suffering from wing rot.

The boy attempted once again to fly, resulting in him falling on the ground and staring helplessly at his wing, as if he had just realised that cursing didn’t allow him to fly. A sudden thought struck Aria, He doesn't know what it is! It was strange to her that someone would not know what wing rot was, it was part of everyday life. Maybe not his life… was it possible that this boy came from a Hollow that didn’t suffer from wing rot, and that he had just become exposed to it when he came near her Hollow?

Now Aria had come to a decision. The most obvious choice she had was to hide until he left. Another was to sneak out the other direction so he didn’t see her. And the most ridiculous choice was helping him. Aria knew what he needed was turquoise bush flowers, and for the most part, she knew what needed to be done to treat the rot and to help the wing grow back; though she wasn’t sure if it would work on dragon wings. She chose the most ridiculous choice.

“Um, excuse me?” she called as innocently as possible over the wall of rock, “Do you need help?” The boy froze where he was standing, a panicked expression on his face. He started to beat his wings almost violently in an attempt to get away. Of course, the attempt failed and he fell to the ground in pain. In obvious agony, he pulled himself up and started to stagger away, only to fall to the ground a moment later and start pulling himself along, jostling his wings rather badly.

“Don’t do that!” Aria yelled, afraid that he was going to hurt himself further. Now determined, she actually stood up on the edge of the rocks and jumped. Her wings caught the air and brought her into and easy glide down next to him. “You’ll just make it worse!” she scolded the boy, who was now lying in a heap gasping for breath, unable to continue forward despite his best efforts.

He managed to roll on his side, “You’re- not- afraid- of- me?”

“No. Should I be?”

“It- depends on- your point of view,” his breath seemed to be improving, that was good.

“What do you mean?” Good. This seems to be calming him down, just keep him talking.

“What do you- mean, ‘What do you mean?’? Look at me!” Better! Breath almost back to normal. Aria was encouraged by this.

“I am looking at you.”

“I can see that but… How can you be so calm?”

“That’s one of the many questions I’m asking myself right now. Care to answer it for me?”

“Um, I’m not sure how to respond to that.”

“Easy, you look at me and tell me why I’m so calm. While you’re at it, you can try to guess the other ‘many questions’ going through my head right now.”

The boy struggled into a sitting position. Aria tried to help, but he shrugged her off. He looked at Aria, “How am I supposed to do that?” he asked, visibly confused.

Oh, right. Duh. Aria unfurled her wings from where she had instinctively folded them on her back. His mouth fell open.

“But, I don’t know you! How is it possible? If you’re one of us then I must know you!” He was sounding rather panicked again, though Aria didn’t know why. Was he used to knowing all the fairies that he met that had dragon wings too? That’s when it registered.

“Wait, one of ‘us’?”

“Yes, one of ‘us’.” He had that confused expression again, like “us” was something that was used all the time when referring to fairies with dragon wings.

“Look, you don’t seem to be catching onto this so I’ll just ask my questions. Okay, first off, who the heck are you?” This was really just the first one of the questions that popped into Aria's head, and she really didn't care that it probably sounded rude.

“I could ask the same of you.”

Aria sighed, “Fine, fair enough. My name is Aria Windbourne,” she stuck out her hand.

He shook it  cautiously, “Jack Drakeson.”

“Now that we have that settled, my second question; why do your wings look like mine?”

He looked really confused at this. From his expression alone, you would guess that Aria had either just asked him to do the tango with her while wearing underwear on his head, or had asked him to solve the expression 87/(75x[4,790+2,893]-[42-180])4+4,835,769-421 in his head. “Well, uh… I’m not sure I know how respond to that.”

“It’s easy, you just tell me why my wings look like yours. You really aren't good at answering questions, are you?”

“No, it’s not that. I know why our wings look the same, I don’t know how to respond to you not knowing why.”

“For the love of the Gods, just tell me already!”

“No need to start swearing!”

“You really have no idea how long I was listening to you before I said anything.”

Jack blushed a furious shade of red, “How long?” he asked almost sheepishly.

“Since you landed,” Aria smiled, Jack groaned.

“Never mind that,” He said, trying to shake off his embarrassment, “The reason our wings are the same, I really have no idea how you don’t already know this, is because we are both dragon fey.”

“What?”

Jack sighed impatiently, “We are both dragon fey. How did you not already know that?”

“What do you mean how did I ‘not already know that’?” Aria asked incredulously, “How was I supposed to know that? And what’s a ‘dragon fey’ anyway?”

“Um, I’m not sure I know how to respond to that either,”

“Again I’m going to to tell you, it’s not that hard. Just tell me what the heck a dragon fey is!”

Jack just gave her a blank stare, “It’s what we are. Where have you been you're entire life?”

“I have been in my Hollow my entire life, like a normal person! Where have you been?” Aria was getting seriously ticked at this guy, What kind of a name is “Drakeson” anyway? Most fairies were named after things in nature, Leafling, Earthchild, Riverfair, Windbourne; a name like “Drakeson” didn’t make any sense.

“I’ve been where I belong,” he said it with a somewhat solemn expression, his voice lowered to almost a whispered.

Aria’s voice was quite as well, “And where is that?”

Jack didn’t answer the question instead he whispered, “You’re her, aren’t you?” He stared at her questioningly, and she gave him confused a stare back. Suddenly, Jack bit his lip and hissed in pain, flinching, his body trying to curl into a ball. It was then that Aria remembered her original purpose for talking to him.

“Just stay calm, it’s not that big a deal. I know it hurts but it happens all the time. I know how to fix it, and it just so happens that I recently discovered the location of the necessary plant,” then as afterthought she added, “You seem not to know anything about wing rot, why is that?”

“Because our race has never gotten this ‘wing rot’ before.”

“Look, I don’t know what you're talking about. Fairies get wing rot all the time. Anyway, we need to get you hidden. My Hollow freaks out because one of their own has dragon wings, imagine how they’d react to a stranger with them too. And me with him! I’d be toast.”

“What do you mean? The dragon fey are highly respected everywhere, we sent you to that Hollow because we knew you’d be cared for as royalty! You were to be our link…”  He trailed off.

“Ya, like demons are so highly respected everywhere. They say I’m cursed. I’m forbidden to use any ability they don’t consider ‘normal’. I had to put up quite a fight before I was allowed to use these things to fly,” Aria flexed her wings behind her, “You speak as if these wings are something to be proud of, but they aren’t. In the real world they are the bane of existence, I think it would benefit your health greatly to live in that world.

“Now, you need medical care. Are you going to cooperate and help me get you into those rocks, or should I leave you here until your wings rot away, that is, if the fairies from my Hollow don’t find you first?” Jack nodded his head in compliance, he was going to cooperate.

Aria got into position and helped him wrap his arms around her shoulders. She then began the laborious task of flying with Jack’s arms wrapped around her, him helping her weakly. Suffice to say, both of them felt the awkwardness.

After what felt like hours but was really only ten minutes, Aria gripped the lip of the rocks and pulled herself up with Jack’s help. They both lay there, Aria panting from exhaustion and Jack panting from a combination of that and pain. When they had both gotten their breath back, Aria helped him into position again and they began the much easier task of going down into the smaller clearing.

“Do you live here?” Jack asked with a measurable amount of contempt showing in his voice.

“No, but if everything goes as planned, I will be soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re running away.”

“We?”

“A friend and I.”

“Who?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“Only because you aren’t sure of the question.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means, you don’t really care about why I care. You care about why I don’t care.” They stared at each other.

“Don’t care about what?”

“Are you messing with me, or are you really that daft?”

“Neither.”

“You have to be one or the other. Being neither is impossible.”

“Alright then, I’m messing with you.”

“Then what do I not care about?”

“Umm…”

“I thought so,” Jack sighed, “I don’t care that you have dragon wings. From what I gathered earlier, everyone else thinks it’s a pretty big deal.”

“Answering ‘because’ still doesn't make any sense. And I know the answer to that anyway, you have dragon wings too. Now hold still!” Aria was taking some of the puffs of cotton and rubbing the place where Jack’s wing was damaged.

“Ow!”

“Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“Ya, you’re right. I’m not,” Aria continued dabbing at the black spots with the cotton, “There. I found a seed stuck to one of these puffs. The oils in it should slow the wing rot down and help with the pain. I’ll be back with the flowers I need,” Aria put the cotton puffs back in her stash and flew up to the top of the rocks.

By now the light was almost gone, and Aria realised with a jolt, Crap! It’s got to be dangerously close to berry-over-picking-time! This meant that if she wasn’t back to the Hollow to either check in for late berry picking or to turn in for the night, she was in serious trouble.

I probably can’t help him anyway. Knowing me I’d probably spread it to the other wing.

“Anything wrong?” Asked Jack when he saw that Aria was still hovering near the opening of the clearing.

“No, everything's fine. I might be back a little later though.”

“Fine! It’s not like anybody cares whether or not I’m sitting here dying.”

“Shut up! You are not dying, quit being such a drama queen!” Before Aria could hear Jack’s comeback she had flown out of earshot, her mind made up. If someone doesn’t remind me why I helped that guy in the first place, I swear I might kill him. Heck, I might kill him anyway! Aris hadn’t known it was possible to be so ticked at