Over the months, when the next new hatchlings appeared and grew up to be frisks, Damara got to know many of the dragons at Camp. She liked to play with the frisks, and Xander always worried aloud if they were careful not to hurt her. Of course, she got the occasional scratch or scrape. But being around the dragons was toughening her, and she always got up from her falls, happy as though nothing had happened.
Xander got comfortable with leaving Damara at times. Just so long as Jacinth, Theo, or someone else he trusted was there, he decided it was fine for him to go off on his own.
One day, Theo was surprised to stumble across Damara at the creek running and laughing with nary a piece of clothing on.
“Damara, please dress yourself before your brother sees you,” Jacinth begged her.
“I don’t want to wear clothes!” Damara yelled out joyfully. “I want to be just like you!”
“But you’re a human- Please, Damara! Xander wouldn’t like you going around like this.” Jacinth spotted Theo. “River!” she breathed in relief. “You have to help me.”
Theo shook her head helplessly. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Damara!” Xander’s voice shouted and the girl stopped in her tracks. He trudged out of the trees over to her dress, picked it up and handed it to her. “Put it on,” he said sternly. Theo noted how mature he sounded.
“I don’t want to,” Damara complained.
“Put it on or I’ll put it on for you.”
Damara gave him a pouty look and started tugging it on over her head. “Why do I have to wear clothes?” she whined.
“Because you’re a human. That’s why I wear clothes, too.”
Damara grumbled something, muffled by the dress hanging around her mouth.
“What was that?” Xander asked.
Her head popped up through the material and she stuck her arms through the sleeves. “I don’t like being a human,” she repeated loudly.
Theo held her breath, waiting to hear Xander’s response. He took a while standing there, looking jarred as though he wasn’t sure of what to think. “Well, that’s too bad,” he said finally. Then, looking back at where he’d come from, he told her in softer tones, “I brought you something. Do you want to see it?”
Damara shrugged with a glum expression as though a gift didn’t appeal to her.
Xander walked over to a tree and untied a piece of twine from its branches. Theo tried to see what was on the other end. He lifted out his arm to let whatever it was crawl up onto him and then he returned to Damara.
“It’s a wyvern,” he told her and she gaped in amazement at the small monigon. Its body was white with webbed wings and a long, thin tail. Its head was turned calmly towards her, like a perfect domestic pet.
Theo froze. That wyvern looks far too familiar. Like the one in the tree when I was a little girl…The one that talked to me…
“Oh!” Damara fascinated over it.
“Here,” Xander said, bending his knees to more her height. “If you hold out your wrist it will climb onto you. Would you like that?”
Damara did as he said, giggling as the monigon hooked its tiny wing talons onto her sleeve, hoisting itself all the way. There, it curled itself up so it could fit on her thin little arm.
Xander smiled, their little quarrel now completely forgotten. “I think we can take this off now,” he determined, using his fingers to untie the loose knot around its neck. The wyvern looked like it didn’t care whether it was restrained or not.
“What do you want to call it?” Xander asked, stuffing the twine into his pocket.
Damara took her eyes away from the little animal on her sleeve. “She’s supposed to name herself,” she recited the dragons’ belief, looking confused. “Didn’t she already give herself a name?”
“Only the big dragons do that,” Xander answered her. “This one, you have to name, because she’s yours.”
“Mine?” Damara questioned, looking back down, enraptured.
“Yeah, so what do you want to name her?”
Damara didn’t answer. She seemed stuck in the decision.
“Well, you think about it,” he said finally, patting her on the back. He left her to meet Jacinth and Theo.
“Where did you get that wyvern?” Theo asked him stiffly.
Xander shrugged. “I just found it,” he replied. “I didn’t even have to catch it. It just climbed onto me when I offered it my arm.
Theo eyed him suspiciously. “You didn’t steal it, did you?”
Xander laughed. “Give it a rest,” he said, but didn’t answer her question. Instead, he turned to Jacinth. “You have to be firm with orders,” he told her. “She may not want to wear clothes, but she needs to remember she’s a person. I think a pet might help her with that.”
“Look, Xander!” Damara cheered and he turned around. “She flew up into that tree!” The little girl beamed up at where the wyvern had perched.
Xander followed her gaze and sighed. “I guess that didn’t last long,” he concluded, dissatisfied. “I should have known she doesn’t understand how to handle a pet.” He walked unhappily away.
Theo sympathized with him as he went. “Poor, Xander. He’s really trying to look after his sister.”
“Maybe it’s best for her to lose some of her human characteristics,” Jacinth suggested. “It’s not a very attractive quality to want to own everything.”
Theo thought about it for a while. “I suppose,” she agreed finally.
“Why don’t we go visit Camp?” Jacinth asked the children. “Sky and Lichen might be there.”
“Sky!” Damara chirped, jumping up and down. “Lichen!”
“You like that idea, Damara?” Xander asked, smiling. “Alright, then.”
At Camp they did not find Sky or Lichen, but Xander’s interest was caught by the firesap plants. Theo saw him frown and reach his hand into the tangle of branches.
“Careful,” Theo warned him on instinct. It took her a moment to realize what she was warning him about, though. Having been in a scaled body for so long, she’d forgotten what it was like to have nothing but delicate skin to protect soft human flesh. Those thorns could easily draw blood, she assessed, observing the various, crooked thorns aligning the woody branches.
“I am,” Xander excused. He twisted his arm precariously, trying to slip his hand farther in until he reached what he wanted. He made a face as he went about extracting whatever it was from the plants.
At last, his hand was free and Theo could see what was pinched between his fingers- a firesap flower.
Theo, too, became fascinated with it, for its color was that of which she’d never seen before. She didn’t even know how to describe it. It could not be compared to any other color.
“How weird,” Xander muddled. “I’ve never seen a black flower before.”
“Black?” Theo puzzled. “It’s not black, it’s…I’m not quite sure what color it is. Jacinth?” Theo asked, hoping to get her friend’s opinion, but she had left them to talk to Adder.
“It’s black,” Xander insisted. “Look.” He bent to pick up a nearby crow’s feather. “This is black. Can you not see that it’s black?”
“I can see it,” Theo replied, looking back and forth from the feather to the flower. “They are nothing alike!”
Xander threw his hands up in frustration. “Damara,” he said, turning towards his sister with a thoughtful expression. “What color is this flower?”
Damara lifted her curious eyes from a snail to his hand. “Black,” she answered.
“See?” Xander smiled, sitting to pull his little sister into his lap. “Damara says it is black, so it’s black.”
“No…” Theo opposed. “Oriole!” she called the dragon nearest to them.
“What is it?” Oriole asked happily, approaching them.
“Tell me the color of that flower.”
Oriole looked at the blossom that Xander held up. “It’s the color of the firesap flower,” she replied, seeming
ly puzzled as to why Theo would ask.
“Does it match this?” Xander pressed, bringing the crow’s feather close to the flower.
“No.” Oriole shook her head. “As far as I know, the only other thing that matches the firesap flower is the firesap fruit pit.”
“Really?” Theo was amazed.
“It’s black, I tell you!” Xander argued, then stopped, his eyes focusing in on the flower. Gently, he lifted a single finger to the flower’s petals.
Theo took a closer look, interested in what had captured his attention so suddenly.
From the cup of the flower emerged the tiniest monigon Theo had ever seen. No larger than a honeybee, the creature had a tail curled like a tendril and six spindly legs. Its dainty wings, when opened, had a unique, almost rounded shape to them. Its whole body was black with stripes of yellow ringing around its middle.
“Damara,” Xander spoke in a hushed voice, as though afraid he might blow the monigon away. “Look at this.”
But Damara was already staring at the creature, entranced.
“Fairy dragon,” she peeped.
“A fairy dragon?” Xander repeated after her. “I’ve never heard of that before.”
Theo could see him trying to hold his hands perfectly still as the monigon crawled onto his fingertip. Its legs, she noted, moved in a very erratic yet whimsical fashion.
“It’s amazing,” Theo whispered. How could an animal that small even eat the firesap fruit? Could it be that the nectar of the flower has the same effect?
She turned her head to examine the firesap plants. Are there more of these little monigons?
At first glance, there appeared to be none. But as she focused in on certain areas, behind thorns and inside flowers, she found that there were dozens upon dozens of them. How have I never noticed these before?
Theo began to recognize similarities between some of them, such as wing shape and coloration.
She looked back at Xander as he began laughing, holding his hand out with the monigon still sticking to his finger. It was circling about, its long skinny tongue darting in and out of its mouth as it tasted Xander’s skin.
“It tickles!” Xander’s voice wavered with laughter. “Here, Damara. See how it feels.”
Delicately, he brushed the creature into the small palm of Damara’s hand. It tumbled over a little before splaying its legs and kicking outward to get up off its back. Damara giggled, bringing her hand close to her face to get a better look.
Finally upright, the bee-like monigon braced itself, beating its wings at an impressive rate. It buzzed away with Damara staring wondrously after it.
“Aw,” Xander said, disappointed. “Did it lick you at all?”
Damara shook her head, clasping her hands together and placing them in her lap.
“That’s alright,” Xander told her. “I’ll just catch you another one!”
Gently, he moved her off of him and stood up, peering into the firesap plants for more monigons. Just above his head, one not as small as the last, but small all the same, came whirring and hovered in the air. Its wings moved so fast Theo could barely see them. Backwards, forwards, and side to side, it danced while peering into the tangle of plants.
No doubt that wyvern used to be a hummingbird, Theo observed with admiration, recognizing its perfectly imitated flight pattern.
Damara had joined Xander in his search for more monigons.
“Careful of the thorns,” he reminded her, watching as she reached into the branches.
Theo smiled at the two children with Oriole standing beside her.
“Have you heard of the Golden Dragon?” Oriole asked out of the blue.
“I have,” Theo replied.
“I hear she’s so attractive, deer will come to her and let her kill them without even trying to run.”
Theo snorted. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s true!” Oriole insisted. “Lynx told me.”
“Did he now?” Theo shook her head in amusement. Who would believe that freak? “Did he tell you he saw it with his own eyes?”
“Yes…Or maybe not…” Oriole scrunched her nose, obviously trying to remember. Theo waited patiently, or rather absentmindedly, watching as Xander placed tiny monigons in Damara’s hair. The girl shrilled delightedly.
“I guess not,” Oriole sighed eventually.
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” Theo murmured, distracted. Xander and Damara were bringing back memories of her and Chadwick when they were young. I miss Chadwick, she thought sadly.
Theo eyed the two children once more. Always be there for each other, she willed them silently. It’s hard to know just how much someone means to you until you lose them.
Chapter 20