Crags and Caverns

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. More avian than terrestrial, their love for flight drew them to the pinnacles and crags; roosting in massive aeries cleverly arranged out of reach from all but the most skilled and daring of climbers.

Ivor gripped the near-seamless rock face with talent grown of necessity. Deft fingers finding and testing the merest ripples and fissures in the rock, pliant toes sharing the weight as he worked from one hold to the next. With grim determination he pressed into his work, yielding his upward progress only when down would move him closer. Scanning the wall to his left, he could just make out a crack above, shallow and mere inches long, four feet on his diagonal. A quick flex of his fingers and bend of his knees and he was launching himself up and out to it. His skill showed as his fingers found their intended mark and held him, swaying.

Twenty minutes later, he reached his goal; an aerie, barely discernible from the rocks around its mouth, gaped before him. The acrid stench of brimstone, urine, and scorch was a familiar welcome. This aerie was one he visited every season and his experience told him that it was again inhabited, but not presently occupied. Hoisting himself over its suspended lip, he paused to pour out a quick drink offering to the gods of rock and wind and fire. Then, freeing the mouth to his shoulder sack, he headed into the cavern.

Ivor noted the temperature of the floor on his bare feet as he made his way down the sloped entrance. It would increase as he approached the horde, and even a lifetime of calluses wouldn’t fully shield him if he ventured too deep. He liked the limitation, it kept him from getting greedy. Confident he was alone, he allowed himself the first bars of a popular folk song, drawing it out to the echoing harmonies of the aerie’s resonance. He had just rollicked through the first chorus as he rounded the bend into the horde, but the glittering sight of it stopped him mid-word. It always did.

Laid on a bed of dragon-fired coals, the mountains of a dragon horde, collected over generations, were incredible to behold. They cast glittering light of every color round and about the central cave and Ivor always allowed himself a moment of enrapture. He grinned looking at its contents though. Not everything that glitters is gold, as they say, but dragons didn’t know that. He’d have his work cut out for him tonight; sorting through the unneeded to find the actually valuable items mixed in. Just being mindful of all the broken stained glass would set him back. This dragon must have deglazed a cathedral again. It was becoming more common in recent years.

Resuming his song with an added lilt of humor, he picked a likely starting point, pulled tumbler and flint from his sack, flared his torch, and set to his task. The lines of favorite songs danced like maidens among the shifting lights from the horde and time melted away. He had just about met the limit of his pack when an unusual item caught his eye. It was settled deeper in the horde, oblong and patterned like an… it couldn’t be. The blood in Ivor’s veins seemed to suddenly be made of ice, and again his song died in his mouth. Eggs.

He had stayed long enough. His tools found their way into his pack almost of their own volition and it was cinched and on his shoulders before he had even fully turned around. He could contemplate the implications of an unseasonal clutch as he made his descent, right now he must be…

“GOING?” The word shivered inside his mind, crackling like frost. Shock snapped his head upright and he found himself eye to eye with a drakaina. Her sapphire eyes seemed ageless, (though experience told him she was young still), fathomless, and… amused? Ivor could have cursed himself for being a hundred times the fool but could think of no point that he had deviated from his seasonal routine. It was simply too early in the year for a drakaina dame and clutch. He didn’t know what to do next.

He could feel her inquiry; her waiting presence, both before him and, somehow on the fringes of his mind. His fear and puzzlement must have registered with her as well, for he felt a ripple of humor from her and watched in amazement as she clearly raised a scaled eyebrow at him and seemed to await his reply. Would there be an acceptable explanation for him, here, standing amongst the heaps of collected trinkets, his bag clearly full?

She seemed to allow him his discomfort for several heartbeats, then, unexpectedly released his gaze and settled herself down into a recline, crossing her taloned forelegs in front of her. “Cat,” he thought, unbidden, watching her movements. Though, a winged house cat the size of a prized milk cow hardly conjured homey feelings. “WHAT WAS YOUR SONG?” Her question pulled him back. Again, the cold fingers tracing internal words. “The Ev’n Row… m’lady” he fumbled. Faint lifting at the corners of her luminous eyes, the humor again. “I THINK M’LADY IS RESERVED FOR HUMANS… HUMAN. SING THE CHORUS AGAIN, I LOVED ITS PLAY OF COLORS AND LIGHT”

Unsure just what she meant, but certain he couldn’t refuse her, Ivor began the chorus once more, ‘… so come away my sweetheart, before home you must hie, come away my strong lad before you need go, one last time ‘fore the twilight we’ll give our goodbye, one last kiss ‘fore the ev’n row…”

Round the cavern, the lyrics seemed to skip and twirl, and indeed, it looked as though the hues and prisms from the ember-warmed horde rose up to meet the music and keep time! Ivor drew a quick breath in surprise as the colors swayed to the fading echoes. It was something he had imagined seeing in every trip over the last ten seasons, a fleeting impression in his periphery. Only now, did they seem to allow him to focus on them and his long-time delight in the idea warmed his chest.

A thrum of approval in his mind jolted him from his reverie. Feeling a dragon’s voice was… unnerving. He risked turning his gaze back to her, afraid to ask, but needing to know what might happen next. “May I leave, Madam?” Her eyes narrowing in consideration her reply snapped and groaned into mental focus, “SHOULDN’T I EAT YOU FIRST?” He had no clear memory of what happened next but inexplicably found himself back at the aerie’s mouth, unharmed, and with the glittering echo of dragon laughter falling like snow in his mind.

He dropped to the stone and retched, his mind and stomach whirling. He shakily fumbled for his flask and poured all its contents out in a fevered thanks to every god he could recall. Then he sucked breaths through wildly flaring nostrils until his pulse calmed and he felt he could try his way home. It was only as he began his shaky descent that he realized he still had his pack full of reclaimed treasure; a prize he had believed no dragon could resist.

She had never asked for it back, and he had no idea why.