Fic: A Companion for the Road (PG-13 for violence)
This is my half of the trade I did with Wazaga for the pic she did. She requested a continuation of her story Draco - The Spring Festival, showing how her characters' relationship evolved.
Draco awakened, rolling over in the dust that lined the floor of the cave, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the morning light rising from the plains below. He squinted against the dawn, staring at the five fingered hand at the end of his arm. Soft tanned skin instead of hard green scales, tipped with blunt nails instead of sharp claws, a human hand for a human body. His body, or rather the one that had been forced upon him by the Great Court, in both punishment for his crime and ironic mercy for the services he had performed as General of the First Wing. No more a proud and noble dragon, but a soft, claw-less, wing-less, nigh helpless human.
"Just a dream," he muttered. He must have gotten drunk at the Spring Festival yesterday, and dreamed of rescuing the beautiful, pearlescent dagron hen from the murderous humans who would have killed and skinned her for the sake of their blasted festival. Dreamed of being granted the impossible wish of his curse being set abeyance for a single day, of being able to fly for the first time in over three decades of exile.
He stretched, walked to the opening of the cave, looking down the sheer cliff face that extended over two hundred feet below his feet. Yes, and while I was drunk I climbed up to this cave so I'd have a safe place to sleep off my hangover. Perhaps it had not been a dream after all. But if that were true, where was his benefactor?
His answer was granted a moment later when a white shape some twenty-five feet long glided into view from around the curve of the mountain. He pressed himself against the wall of the cave as Anya, the dagron he had rescued two days before, landed lightly on the cave floor, dropping the body of the stag she held in her jaws in front of him, along with a pile of kindling she carried in her claws.
"Good morning, General Draco. I brought you breakfast," she said, her voice sweet melodies in the cool air of the morning.
"My thanks, Anya," he said, as his stomach growled in agreement. He hadn't eaten since... before that interminable wait in front of the baker's shop two days before. Really, he should have hunted when he had the chance yesterday, but the chance to fly had overwhelmed any mundane bodily considerations. From his belt he drew the truncated remnant of his sword, broken on the bars of the cage that had held her, the remaining four inches of blade serving as a crude knife to skin the stag and cut off a hunk of meat. He drew a bit of flint from the pouch clipped to his belt and started to spark it against his blade.
"What are you doing?" Anya asked, sounding amused.
"I'm trying to start a cookfire... Ah..." he said, realizing the foolishness of his actions even as he answered her. Putting the flint back in his pouch, Draco gestured towards the pile of kindling. "If you would, please?"
Anya ducked her head, laughing a moment, before opening her jaw and puffing out a single, small fireball. It struck the wood dead center, sending up sparks as one log literally exploded from the impact.
"Thank you." Draco speared his chunk of meat with a stick and stuck it into the fire, while Anya picked up the stag again in her jaws and gulped it down nearly whole. The heat from the flames banished the last of the morning mountain chill, a human weakness, one of many, that he had learned to accommodate in his long years of exile.
"You're quiet," Anya noted, curling up cat-like on the floor, her chin resting on the tip of her tail.
He stared down at his hand again, listening to the crackle of the fire. "I was thinking that perhaps I should have refused your gift the day before. Being able to fly again, only to return once more to this weak human form, is perhaps a worse torture that what the Court inflicted upon me originally."
She raised up her head again. "Upon my honor, I meant no torment. What do you mean?"
He lowered the chunk of venison closer to the fire. "One of the old, vanished human cultures had a legend, about a greedy, gluttonous man, who upon his death was sent to the Underworld to suffer a torment suited to his sins. He was buried up to his waist in sucking mud, unable to pull himself out, suffering great hunger. Beside the mud hole was a single pomegranate tree, the branches hanging low, weighed down by succulent fruit. If he stretched, he could just touch one of the fruit, but as soon as his fingers brushed against it, the mud would suck him back down, rendering it out of his reach."
Puzzled, she said, "Certainly a terrible fate, but I'm not certain how it applies to your own punishment."
"That's only half the tale. After a century or more of this sinner's suffering, the Lord of the Underworld took a mortal woman to wife, whom he loved so much that he gave her leave to wander his domain, protected by his... grace... from the dangers within his land. One day she found the man, who wept and begged for her to pluck down one of the fruits and hand it to him. She took pity on him and did as he bid, and he consumed the prize as lustily as he had any of his numerous great banquets. Then she left to attend upon her husband and the hunger crept up upon him again, a thousand times worse now, for he had felt a brief moment of relief, with the memory of that moment reminding him of what he had lost as he was tormented once more."
Anya dipped her head, eyes lowered. "I am sorry that my gift causes you such pain, General. I had thought..." She sighed unhappily. "Human years are so short. I had thought it would seem no time at all for you, until you could fly once again.
Draco suddenly felt a stabbing sense of guilt for dampening her spirit with his tale. "Please, Anya. What you gave me was a gift beyond measure," he said. "Even if I must wait a year to fly again, at least I know that I will have the chance. That hungry sinner only felt relief once, after all."
She nodded, raising her fine featured head once again. "There is that much at least." A hint of amusement entered her voice once more. "Perhaps if you save more hens, they will grant you additional relief from your curse."
He considered that for a moment. "There's a thought. I'd only have to save another three hundred and sixty-three to escape it completely, after all. No, sixty-four, counting leap years."
As he'd hoped, his attempt at humor had the desired effect and she laughed. It was a most beautiful sound.
I must make her laugh again, soon. First things first though, his curiosity was digging at him. "If I may ask, how did those humans catch you anyway? Surely they didn't climb all the way up here while you slept."
Anya shook her elegant head. "It was my own foolishness. I saw a single, fat cow sitting in a field, apparently cut out from its herd. It was too heavy to fly away with, so I landed beside it and began to eat it on the ground. As soon as I bit into its stomach, I realized my mistake."
"It was filled with drakebane?" Draco guessed.
"Exactly. I spat it out and tried to fly away, but it was too late. I fell back to the earth and was unconscious in a moment. When I awakened again, I was bound and caged as you found me."
Draco snorted. "A typical, dishonorable human tactic."
"It worked. My hide would have been hanging in the village square if it weren't for you." She bowed her great head over his own, her muzzle almost touching his bangs. He could feel her warm, sweet breath blowing softly over his face. "You have my eternal gratitude, General Draco."
He turned his head away, ashamed at her attention. "You've already given me your thanks, given me a gift beyond measure. Please, take me back to the road now. I have to continue on my journey."
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I don't know. I had intended to stay a few days in the village for the festival, but obviously that's out now."
She smiled down at him. "Why not stay here with me for a time?"
He stood up, pulling his venison from the fire and tore a chunk from it, tossing the hot meat between his fingers while it cooled, head bowed. "I can't."
"Why-ever not?"
"Anya, look at me!" he said, turning back towards her. "I am an exile! I'm not even a dragon anymore! I'm a... thing... stuffed into a human skin! A murderer! If I stayed with you my dishonor would stain you! You are too..." His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed. "You are too beautiful for such a fate."
She flared her scales in a display of strength, haughty and proud. "Whom I choose to associate with is my own affair. Dishonored you may be among the Court, but there is no hen, dagron or dragon, who would turn away your company."
He growled at her. "Then perhaps hens are as foolish and weak minded as males would insist. Take me back to the road, Anya. I don't wish to stay with you any longer."
Her nostrils flared in irritation, smoke billowing from them. "You refuse my company, after the gift I granted you?"
"Yes," he snapped.
Anya snorted, but instead of picking him up and flying him out of the cave, she turned around and stamped towards the back, returning with a sword in a black leather scabbard. She dropped it into his hands and he drew it automatically. It was a practical weapon, shining, balanced, with well oiled steel, a brass hilt and a cross guard wrapped in worn leather, not a bejeweled and golden nobleman's plaything. "There," she said. "A replacement for the one you lost rescuing me."
He unbuckled his belt and slipped the tail through the loop of the scabbard. "My thanks, Anya."
"Now, we are even. I will fly you to the nearest crossroads, then you can be on your way." Without waiting for a reply she snatched him up, leaping out of the cave and plummeting towards the ground, her great leathery wings snapping open at the last possible second to skim the tops of the trees. The muscles under her scales pumped and surged and they rose into the air. She glided for several miles before setting down in a crossroad, the signs indicating about twenty-five miles to a minor port city that he'd heard of before, but never visited.
Draco dropped out of her grasp as she opened her palm, landing lightly onto his feet. "Thank you again," he said. "You are making the right decision not to remain with me."
She didn't respond to that, but merely asked, "What will you do now?"
"I have a sword again, my strength, and thirty years study of human tactics. There will be someone in need of my services and the coin to pay me. There always is." He cocked his head. "And you?"
"I will return to my cave and contemplate what a foolish hen I was to have associated with an exile," she said coolly. "Safe journeys, General." She hunkered down, claws digging into the turf beside the road, then leaped into the air once again, her pearl white form soon lost in the bright yellow light of the sun.
"Safe journeys, Anya," he said softly. He looked down, to find he still held the stick in his hand with the cooked venison flank speared upon it. He raised it to his mouth and tore off a bite.
The meat was cold.
* * *
Draco trudged on through the rest of the morning and afternoon, pausing at a short bridge that crossed a stream to cup his hands in the cool water and refresh himself. A few carts had passed him going to and from the city, but he had demurred from the offers he had received to hitch a ride in return for his protection. He was in no mood for company, no matter how businesslike.
He had walked two more miles, the blood red sun beginning to drop down over the hills, when he heard the woman's scream in the distance, around a bend in the road.
For one truculent moment, Draco considered staying right where he was and not getting involved. But then he shook his head and dashed forward, eating ground under his long strides as he drew his sword. I am forever rescuing hens, he thought.
He turned the corner to find four bandits dressed in dark leathers and armed with bows and knives, menacing a young woman with pearl white hair and ears larger than even that of an elf, dressed a purple and lilac robes suitable for a traveling mage. But she was in no position to cast anything as one of the bandits wrenched her arm behind her back, his other dirt stained hand clamped tight around her mouth.
"Release her!" he shouted, even as his blade slashed down against the wrist of one of the bandits. Though his strength was a pathetic fraction of what it was in his true form, he was still in the peak of human condition and he was rewarded by the bandit's hand flying away from his body, his knife still clutched in his fingers. The bandit went down with a cry, clutching his stump as his two unoccupied comrades charged Draco.
The tip his blade sliced inside the reach of his first attacker, knocking his knife away as Draco used the momentum of his sword swing to spin on the ball one foot, his opposite leg kicking in a wide arc to plant his boot heel into the solar plexus of his second opponent, dropping him to the ground beside his maimed comrade.
Though disarmed, his first attacker swung his right fist to try and connect with Draco's jaw. Draco caught it in his free palm, twisting sharply, hard enough to be rewarded with the sound of cracking bones and snapping tendons. He pushed the bandit back to join his fellows on the ground, turning around to face the bandit who still held the young woman in his hands. The bandit's eyes were wide in fear at the sudden outburst of violence, after catching what seemed like such an easy prey. The fight, if could have been called that, had taken perhaps fifteen seconds after Draco had rounded the corner.
"Stay back! I'll kill her!" the remaining bandit stammered as Draco raised sword again.
"With what?" Draco asked him. "Your hands are a bit full at the moment."
"I can still break her... yah!" The bandit's threat was cut short as the woman stomped her boot heel hard on his instep, inciting a cry of pain. She twisted herself out of his grip as Draco flipped his sword around and rapped the pommel hard on the top of the bandit's head, who fell to the ground unconscious.
"Let's get you away from here," he told her, drawing a cloth from his pocket and wiping off the blood from his sword. "Miss...?" Draco's voice trailed off as he got a good look at the mage. She had fine, pearl white hair that flowed down her back and high, delicate features. Her eyes were deep and gray, holding what seemed to be an infinity of wisdom. I had never thought to call a human beautiful.
"Yes, let get away from here. There's a cave nearby where I was… er… camping before." She placed her delicate hand within his and pulled him down a path, leading to a small but warm cavern, the rock face still retaining heat from the afternoon sun. She waved her hand briefly a pile of half-burned logs and they flared to life into a pleasant campfire, filling the cave with bright orange light.
"You shouldn't have been traveling alone," he told her, sitting down on a log. "Bandits won't menace a caravan of travelers, but a single woman, even a mage, is an easy target."
She sat down beside him, brushing down her robes, seemingly unconscious of their close proximity. "A mistake on my part, I will admit. I'm still not used to seeing humans as a threat you see, General."
"General…?" He almost asked her how she could have possibly have known his old rank, before finally he looked into her eyes again and finally saw. "Anya, they didn't…" he breathed, while his mind screamed No. NO! "How could they have discovered your gift to me so quickly? How could the Court even think to curse you as I was, merely for indulging in a day's mercy?" He rose to his, palm gripping the hilt of his sword. "I'll rip their desiccated, flameless throats out for this injustice!"
"General Draco, sit back down," she said patiently. "The Court knows nothing of my gift to you. I transformed myself."
"You did what?!"
"Sit down would you please? I transformed myself. I wanted to see what being a human was like."
"You wanted to see what it was like? I tell you what it's like, they're small, and weak, and..." Draco bit down on ugly.
She smiled gently. "You've lived as one for over thirty years. Surely you must have seen some merit in this form."
"Well... their hands are more clever," he admitted. "
Anya quirked up an eyebrow, waving her fingers in front of her face, as if seeing them for the first time. Actually, maybe she was. "I do believe you're right," she said. She held out her index finger, letting it run down the curve of the muscle of his upper arm. Draco drew in a sharp breath. It wasn't intimate in quite the same was as when their tails had intertwined at the end of that wonderful day, but it felt wonderful nonetheless.
"Tell me, please, what's the bann on your spell?" he asked, trying to concentrate. "What did you give up to warp yourself into this form?"
"I must wear the form until the next Spring Festival, when I change back to my dagron self, for just a day," she said.
"And after?" he demanded. "Such a spell of transformation has a high cost if cast by a single mage. What was ultimate the price you paid?"
"The greatest bann, is that I must remain human, as long as you are human."
"Why would you pay such a price?"
"Because I chose to be with you, Protector of Hens," Anya replied serenely.
"Foolishness! I am an exile!"
"Draco..."
"A criminal!"
"Draco..."
"To be with me is to be dishonored..."
Anya pushed hard against Draco's shoulder, shoving him off the log. Before he could get up she swung her legs around and straddled him, grabbing him by the hair and planting a deep kiss on his lips.
"Stop arguing with me," she said firmly, when they came up for air.
"Yes, milady," he replied.
The End
Draco awakened, rolling over in the dust that lined the floor of the cave, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the morning light rising from the plains below. He squinted against the dawn, staring at the five fingered hand at the end of his arm. Soft tanned skin instead of hard green scales, tipped with blunt nails instead of sharp claws, a human hand for a human body. His body, or rather the one that had been forced upon him by the Great Court, in both punishment for his crime and ironic mercy for the services he had performed as General of the First Wing. No more a proud and noble dragon, but a soft, claw-less, wing-less, nigh helpless human.
"Just a dream," he muttered. He must have gotten drunk at the Spring Festival yesterday, and dreamed of rescuing the beautiful, pearlescent dagron hen from the murderous humans who would have killed and skinned her for the sake of their blasted festival. Dreamed of being granted the impossible wish of his curse being set abeyance for a single day, of being able to fly for the first time in over three decades of exile.
He stretched, walked to the opening of the cave, looking down the sheer cliff face that extended over two hundred feet below his feet. Yes, and while I was drunk I climbed up to this cave so I'd have a safe place to sleep off my hangover. Perhaps it had not been a dream after all. But if that were true, where was his benefactor?
His answer was granted a moment later when a white shape some twenty-five feet long glided into view from around the curve of the mountain. He pressed himself against the wall of the cave as Anya, the dagron he had rescued two days before, landed lightly on the cave floor, dropping the body of the stag she held in her jaws in front of him, along with a pile of kindling she carried in her claws.
"Good morning, General Draco. I brought you breakfast," she said, her voice sweet melodies in the cool air of the morning.
"My thanks, Anya," he said, as his stomach growled in agreement. He hadn't eaten since... before that interminable wait in front of the baker's shop two days before. Really, he should have hunted when he had the chance yesterday, but the chance to fly had overwhelmed any mundane bodily considerations. From his belt he drew the truncated remnant of his sword, broken on the bars of the cage that had held her, the remaining four inches of blade serving as a crude knife to skin the stag and cut off a hunk of meat. He drew a bit of flint from the pouch clipped to his belt and started to spark it against his blade.
"What are you doing?" Anya asked, sounding amused.
"I'm trying to start a cookfire... Ah..." he said, realizing the foolishness of his actions even as he answered her. Putting the flint back in his pouch, Draco gestured towards the pile of kindling. "If you would, please?"
Anya ducked her head, laughing a moment, before opening her jaw and puffing out a single, small fireball. It struck the wood dead center, sending up sparks as one log literally exploded from the impact.
"Thank you." Draco speared his chunk of meat with a stick and stuck it into the fire, while Anya picked up the stag again in her jaws and gulped it down nearly whole. The heat from the flames banished the last of the morning mountain chill, a human weakness, one of many, that he had learned to accommodate in his long years of exile.
"You're quiet," Anya noted, curling up cat-like on the floor, her chin resting on the tip of her tail.
He stared down at his hand again, listening to the crackle of the fire. "I was thinking that perhaps I should have refused your gift the day before. Being able to fly again, only to return once more to this weak human form, is perhaps a worse torture that what the Court inflicted upon me originally."
She raised up her head again. "Upon my honor, I meant no torment. What do you mean?"
He lowered the chunk of venison closer to the fire. "One of the old, vanished human cultures had a legend, about a greedy, gluttonous man, who upon his death was sent to the Underworld to suffer a torment suited to his sins. He was buried up to his waist in sucking mud, unable to pull himself out, suffering great hunger. Beside the mud hole was a single pomegranate tree, the branches hanging low, weighed down by succulent fruit. If he stretched, he could just touch one of the fruit, but as soon as his fingers brushed against it, the mud would suck him back down, rendering it out of his reach."
Puzzled, she said, "Certainly a terrible fate, but I'm not certain how it applies to your own punishment."
"That's only half the tale. After a century or more of this sinner's suffering, the Lord of the Underworld took a mortal woman to wife, whom he loved so much that he gave her leave to wander his domain, protected by his... grace... from the dangers within his land. One day she found the man, who wept and begged for her to pluck down one of the fruits and hand it to him. She took pity on him and did as he bid, and he consumed the prize as lustily as he had any of his numerous great banquets. Then she left to attend upon her husband and the hunger crept up upon him again, a thousand times worse now, for he had felt a brief moment of relief, with the memory of that moment reminding him of what he had lost as he was tormented once more."
Anya dipped her head, eyes lowered. "I am sorry that my gift causes you such pain, General. I had thought..." She sighed unhappily. "Human years are so short. I had thought it would seem no time at all for you, until you could fly once again.
Draco suddenly felt a stabbing sense of guilt for dampening her spirit with his tale. "Please, Anya. What you gave me was a gift beyond measure," he said. "Even if I must wait a year to fly again, at least I know that I will have the chance. That hungry sinner only felt relief once, after all."
She nodded, raising her fine featured head once again. "There is that much at least." A hint of amusement entered her voice once more. "Perhaps if you save more hens, they will grant you additional relief from your curse."
He considered that for a moment. "There's a thought. I'd only have to save another three hundred and sixty-three to escape it completely, after all. No, sixty-four, counting leap years."
As he'd hoped, his attempt at humor had the desired effect and she laughed. It was a most beautiful sound.
I must make her laugh again, soon. First things first though, his curiosity was digging at him. "If I may ask, how did those humans catch you anyway? Surely they didn't climb all the way up here while you slept."
Anya shook her elegant head. "It was my own foolishness. I saw a single, fat cow sitting in a field, apparently cut out from its herd. It was too heavy to fly away with, so I landed beside it and began to eat it on the ground. As soon as I bit into its stomach, I realized my mistake."
"It was filled with drakebane?" Draco guessed.
"Exactly. I spat it out and tried to fly away, but it was too late. I fell back to the earth and was unconscious in a moment. When I awakened again, I was bound and caged as you found me."
Draco snorted. "A typical, dishonorable human tactic."
"It worked. My hide would have been hanging in the village square if it weren't for you." She bowed her great head over his own, her muzzle almost touching his bangs. He could feel her warm, sweet breath blowing softly over his face. "You have my eternal gratitude, General Draco."
He turned his head away, ashamed at her attention. "You've already given me your thanks, given me a gift beyond measure. Please, take me back to the road now. I have to continue on my journey."
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I don't know. I had intended to stay a few days in the village for the festival, but obviously that's out now."
She smiled down at him. "Why not stay here with me for a time?"
He stood up, pulling his venison from the fire and tore a chunk from it, tossing the hot meat between his fingers while it cooled, head bowed. "I can't."
"Why-ever not?"
"Anya, look at me!" he said, turning back towards her. "I am an exile! I'm not even a dragon anymore! I'm a... thing... stuffed into a human skin! A murderer! If I stayed with you my dishonor would stain you! You are too..." His voice caught in his throat and he swallowed. "You are too beautiful for such a fate."
She flared her scales in a display of strength, haughty and proud. "Whom I choose to associate with is my own affair. Dishonored you may be among the Court, but there is no hen, dagron or dragon, who would turn away your company."
He growled at her. "Then perhaps hens are as foolish and weak minded as males would insist. Take me back to the road, Anya. I don't wish to stay with you any longer."
Her nostrils flared in irritation, smoke billowing from them. "You refuse my company, after the gift I granted you?"
"Yes," he snapped.
Anya snorted, but instead of picking him up and flying him out of the cave, she turned around and stamped towards the back, returning with a sword in a black leather scabbard. She dropped it into his hands and he drew it automatically. It was a practical weapon, shining, balanced, with well oiled steel, a brass hilt and a cross guard wrapped in worn leather, not a bejeweled and golden nobleman's plaything. "There," she said. "A replacement for the one you lost rescuing me."
He unbuckled his belt and slipped the tail through the loop of the scabbard. "My thanks, Anya."
"Now, we are even. I will fly you to the nearest crossroads, then you can be on your way." Without waiting for a reply she snatched him up, leaping out of the cave and plummeting towards the ground, her great leathery wings snapping open at the last possible second to skim the tops of the trees. The muscles under her scales pumped and surged and they rose into the air. She glided for several miles before setting down in a crossroad, the signs indicating about twenty-five miles to a minor port city that he'd heard of before, but never visited.
Draco dropped out of her grasp as she opened her palm, landing lightly onto his feet. "Thank you again," he said. "You are making the right decision not to remain with me."
She didn't respond to that, but merely asked, "What will you do now?"
"I have a sword again, my strength, and thirty years study of human tactics. There will be someone in need of my services and the coin to pay me. There always is." He cocked his head. "And you?"
"I will return to my cave and contemplate what a foolish hen I was to have associated with an exile," she said coolly. "Safe journeys, General." She hunkered down, claws digging into the turf beside the road, then leaped into the air once again, her pearl white form soon lost in the bright yellow light of the sun.
"Safe journeys, Anya," he said softly. He looked down, to find he still held the stick in his hand with the cooked venison flank speared upon it. He raised it to his mouth and tore off a bite.
The meat was cold.
* * *
Draco trudged on through the rest of the morning and afternoon, pausing at a short bridge that crossed a stream to cup his hands in the cool water and refresh himself. A few carts had passed him going to and from the city, but he had demurred from the offers he had received to hitch a ride in return for his protection. He was in no mood for company, no matter how businesslike.
He had walked two more miles, the blood red sun beginning to drop down over the hills, when he heard the woman's scream in the distance, around a bend in the road.
For one truculent moment, Draco considered staying right where he was and not getting involved. But then he shook his head and dashed forward, eating ground under his long strides as he drew his sword. I am forever rescuing hens, he thought.
He turned the corner to find four bandits dressed in dark leathers and armed with bows and knives, menacing a young woman with pearl white hair and ears larger than even that of an elf, dressed a purple and lilac robes suitable for a traveling mage. But she was in no position to cast anything as one of the bandits wrenched her arm behind her back, his other dirt stained hand clamped tight around her mouth.
"Release her!" he shouted, even as his blade slashed down against the wrist of one of the bandits. Though his strength was a pathetic fraction of what it was in his true form, he was still in the peak of human condition and he was rewarded by the bandit's hand flying away from his body, his knife still clutched in his fingers. The bandit went down with a cry, clutching his stump as his two unoccupied comrades charged Draco.
The tip his blade sliced inside the reach of his first attacker, knocking his knife away as Draco used the momentum of his sword swing to spin on the ball one foot, his opposite leg kicking in a wide arc to plant his boot heel into the solar plexus of his second opponent, dropping him to the ground beside his maimed comrade.
Though disarmed, his first attacker swung his right fist to try and connect with Draco's jaw. Draco caught it in his free palm, twisting sharply, hard enough to be rewarded with the sound of cracking bones and snapping tendons. He pushed the bandit back to join his fellows on the ground, turning around to face the bandit who still held the young woman in his hands. The bandit's eyes were wide in fear at the sudden outburst of violence, after catching what seemed like such an easy prey. The fight, if could have been called that, had taken perhaps fifteen seconds after Draco had rounded the corner.
"Stay back! I'll kill her!" the remaining bandit stammered as Draco raised sword again.
"With what?" Draco asked him. "Your hands are a bit full at the moment."
"I can still break her... yah!" The bandit's threat was cut short as the woman stomped her boot heel hard on his instep, inciting a cry of pain. She twisted herself out of his grip as Draco flipped his sword around and rapped the pommel hard on the top of the bandit's head, who fell to the ground unconscious.
"Let's get you away from here," he told her, drawing a cloth from his pocket and wiping off the blood from his sword. "Miss...?" Draco's voice trailed off as he got a good look at the mage. She had fine, pearl white hair that flowed down her back and high, delicate features. Her eyes were deep and gray, holding what seemed to be an infinity of wisdom. I had never thought to call a human beautiful.
"Yes, let get away from here. There's a cave nearby where I was… er… camping before." She placed her delicate hand within his and pulled him down a path, leading to a small but warm cavern, the rock face still retaining heat from the afternoon sun. She waved her hand briefly a pile of half-burned logs and they flared to life into a pleasant campfire, filling the cave with bright orange light.
"You shouldn't have been traveling alone," he told her, sitting down on a log. "Bandits won't menace a caravan of travelers, but a single woman, even a mage, is an easy target."
She sat down beside him, brushing down her robes, seemingly unconscious of their close proximity. "A mistake on my part, I will admit. I'm still not used to seeing humans as a threat you see, General."
"General…?" He almost asked her how she could have possibly have known his old rank, before finally he looked into her eyes again and finally saw. "Anya, they didn't…" he breathed, while his mind screamed No. NO! "How could they have discovered your gift to me so quickly? How could the Court even think to curse you as I was, merely for indulging in a day's mercy?" He rose to his, palm gripping the hilt of his sword. "I'll rip their desiccated, flameless throats out for this injustice!"
"General Draco, sit back down," she said patiently. "The Court knows nothing of my gift to you. I transformed myself."
"You did what?!"
"Sit down would you please? I transformed myself. I wanted to see what being a human was like."
"You wanted to see what it was like? I tell you what it's like, they're small, and weak, and..." Draco bit down on ugly.
She smiled gently. "You've lived as one for over thirty years. Surely you must have seen some merit in this form."
"Well... their hands are more clever," he admitted. "
Anya quirked up an eyebrow, waving her fingers in front of her face, as if seeing them for the first time. Actually, maybe she was. "I do believe you're right," she said. She held out her index finger, letting it run down the curve of the muscle of his upper arm. Draco drew in a sharp breath. It wasn't intimate in quite the same was as when their tails had intertwined at the end of that wonderful day, but it felt wonderful nonetheless.
"Tell me, please, what's the bann on your spell?" he asked, trying to concentrate. "What did you give up to warp yourself into this form?"
"I must wear the form until the next Spring Festival, when I change back to my dagron self, for just a day," she said.
"And after?" he demanded. "Such a spell of transformation has a high cost if cast by a single mage. What was ultimate the price you paid?"
"The greatest bann, is that I must remain human, as long as you are human."
"Why would you pay such a price?"
"Because I chose to be with you, Protector of Hens," Anya replied serenely.
"Foolishness! I am an exile!"
"Draco..."
"A criminal!"
"Draco..."
"To be with me is to be dishonored..."
Anya pushed hard against Draco's shoulder, shoving him off the log. Before he could get up she swung her legs around and straddled him, grabbing him by the hair and planting a deep kiss on his lips.
"Stop arguing with me," she said firmly, when they came up for air.
"Yes, milady," he replied.
The End