Obey me.  Faster…

The wind tore at the boy’s short dark hair, and the rain stung his face.  The creature on whose back he perched reluctantly forced another flap from its huge, batlike wings.

It was a dragon – a powerful creature with a lithe, muscular body thrice the size of a warhorse, armored with shining brown-bronze scales.  This fearsome beast with ivory fangs and fire dwelling in its breast, was terrified.  It wasn’t the deafening crashes of thunder, or the lightning that clawed the heavens that it feared.  It was the boy who held it in his power – the slender boy who would not even fill its belly, with his soft skin its long black claws could pierce so easily and his sweet, warm, crimson blood…

Enough of that.  The boy shot the thought irritably into the dragon’s simple mind with needle-like sharpness.

The creature winced and obediently abandoned any thoughts of what a tasty little morsel its rider would make.

 

Duo sprinted the last few yards to the cave, soaked from braid to sandals.  It had been pretty stupid to go out when it’d started raining, but who could’ve know that it would turn into a downpour?  Deeper in the cave, something stirred.

“Hey buddy,” Duo greeted happily.  With a flicker of magic, he lit a handful of torches on the walls of the cave.

The enormous dragon that was curled around the rocks, its onyx scales glittering in the torchlight, let an amused wisp smoke curl from his nostril.  It sent Duo a mental image of himself, dripping on the cave floor. [1]  He laughed.

“Yeah, pretty pathetic, huh?  Unfortunately, I don’t know a spell for dodging raindrops.”

            Duo’s mind was filled with a picture of fire, and then of steam.

            “Um… no thanks,” he said quickly.  “Remember, I don’t have scales.”

            The dragon lowered its head apologetically.

            “It was a good idea, though,” he assured his dragon.  “I wonder…”

            Most dragon riders would have the need of invulnerability to fire at some point in their (usually very short) lives.  It was a difficult spell, and Duo wasn’t entirely sure he had it mastered.[2]  Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. 

            Well, yes, it could hurt.  But not if he was careful.

            Clearing his mind and laying out the spell, Duo lingered on each step.  He wasn’t usually this painstaking when he went about doing magic, but this was a special case.  If there was the slightest snag in the weave of the spell, he’d be toast.  And not the nice golden kind you could smear lots of butter on.  Charred toast.

            That was everything.  He supposed he ought to test it.  Shrugging, Duo approached the torch, and reached up to it.  He stopped with his hand mere inches away from the flame. 

“Maybe I should test it on something that won’t hurt…” he mused aloud.  Gingerly, he edged the dripping end of his braid towards the torch.  It was just sitting there, enveloped in fire, and not giving off noxious clouds of the scent of buring hair.  That was a good sign.  He dropped his now dry braid and stuck his hand in the torch.  “Nice,” he muttered, grinning, and quite pleased with himself.  “Okay, buddy,” he said, turning back to the dragon.  “Let’s give it a try.”

 

“You’re finished, I see,” the old man stated rhetorically to the very wet boy who jumped from the bronze dragon’s back.

“The creature is inadequate,” the boy said shortly, shaking some of the rain from his short hair.

“So I see,” the old man replied dryly, as the panting dragon slunk towards its cave.  “I suppose you’re waiting for your next challenge?”

“Always,” the boy smirked.

“You’re not ready,” the old man told him.

“What makes you say that?” the lad answered skeptically.

“You’ve dominated every dragon so far.  You rely completely on your own strength.  What happens when the dragon is stronger than you?” he wanted to know.

“That won’t happen,” the boy replied.

The old man shook his head wearily.  “I suppose you’ll have to learn for yourself, Heero.”  Leaning heavily on his knobby cane, the old man started out towards the network of caves.  “Well, follow,” he said impatiently.  Heero obeyed, wringing some of the water from his dark green linen shirt.

Through the labyrinthine twists of the caves, Heero walked after his master, leaving a trail of wet foot-prints.  Farther than he’d gone before, the old man stopped, and with a brief flicker of magic, lit a few torches on the wall of the cavern.

Heero, impressed for the first time in a long while, stared at the magnificent sleeping dragon.  Its hide seemed to shift colors none too subtly each time he looked at it – first blue, perhaps red, now yellow….  He approached it, boldly, and it twitched in its slumber.

“Be cautious, Heero,” the sorcerer warned composedly.

The boy idly wondered if the old man would intercede if the dragon overpowered him.  He doubted it.

Why bother with caution?  If he was strong enough, he’d conquer it.  If he wasn’t, it would conquer him, and he’d be, well… lunch.

So he walked forward and gave the enormous creature a mental nudge.

The dragon’s emerald eyes fluttered open, and settled inquisitively on the slender lad before him.

Dinner?  It sent the thought sleepily in the sorcerer’s general direction, not caring whether or not Heero percieved it.  Letting the old man interfere now would show weakness, which was something Heero needed to prevent, if he intended to live.

Master, Heero corrected, exposing an impressive, but not yet full force of his magic to the creature.  Let it know how powerful he was… or think it knew, anyway.

Better dinner… the dragon thought lazily, yawning.

Nice boots, Heero retorted, forming a mental image of boots made out of the dragon’s shimmering, iridescent hide – although he’d never wear anything that flashy.

 

[1] I’m such a little plagiarist.  This is whole communication thing is SO Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, a beautiful book by Bruce Coville.  So read it.  There, I advertised, so I feel a little better now.

[2] This spell does not involve powdered hen’s teeth and feverfew.  Sorry Cimorene.  (And read Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles while you’re at it, even though I didn’t steal anything from them.  Yet.)