Kalmia had a good sleep that night. The same cannot be said of Dedrik. Dedrik drank too much yesterday and ended up having a hangover the following day.
Once morning began and Kalmia got up when the sun was already up quite some height, Dedrik was still in his room, suffering from his own bad decisions.
After waiting for a while, Kalmia knocked on the door harshly. She didn’t know that Dedrik drank too much during the previous night and made loud noises to wake him up.
Dedrik, who had quite the headache as of that moment, slowly made his way out of the bed and towards the door.
“Hngh… could you be a bit more quiet?”
“Uhm… sure? What’s wrong? Do you not feel well today?”
“Ugh… I got a hangover. Could you get me something to drink?”
“You want to drink alcohol again?!?”
“No, you… Just get me some water please.”
“Sure.”
Kalmia made her way to the counter down the stairs and asked for a cup of water. That Woman of the day before was already working at the counter again. She seemed slightly tired but still relatively fit. After Kalmia asked her for a cup of water, she quickly got cold water and handed it over to Kalmia.
“Here. Bring it to him fast, he’ll need it.”
“Thanks!”
Kalmia went up the stairs and into the room of Dedrik again.
she started to talk in a lower tone
“I got you that water you wanted.”
“Thanks.”
Kalmia put it down on a table next to the bed.
“I am gonna leave you alone for now. I’ll check back with you later.”
“Thank you… see you later…”
Kalmia went out the door and didn’t know what to do today. Usually when not at home Dedrik planed what they would do together. Now that Dedrik isn’t here she didn’t have much on her mind that she could do.
After quite some time, possibly hours, of sitting in her room and reading through her textbooks, she couldn’t bare it any more and went to Dedrik to look for him. She silently saw him laying in the bed and he seemed to sleep. Kalmia closed the door again to let him sleep and went down towards the the eating area of the inn. There she ordered three meals that she liked especially when eating the day before, and paid with one Mât more than she had to just to give a tip.
After eating she sneaked into Dedriks room, took the map that they had taken with them and went out of the Inn.
When she got out the sun stood high in the sky and there didn’t seem to be a single cloud in the sky.
Kalmia didn’t really know how to read a map and essentially just walked around without a clue where she was going. She took turn after turn and somehow at some point managed to find the harbour. There were a lot of Carracks docked at the harbour. A lot of them were unloading or loading good on or off the ship. She saw Rugs, silken cloth or wooden crates being transported over the docks.
She continued her way along the river, which the docks are located at. To her left is the river, to her right are magnificent building, which close to the docks were mainly storage houses and a bit behind slowly turned into pubs, stores and joy houses for those sailors, which have been without company for months.
Suddenly, while continuing to walk along the river, a nice, sweet smell crept into her nose. Quickly she looked around for the origin of this tempting smell however she couldn’t see the source of the smell just by looking around. This lead her to following the scent. Her sence of smelling distinct smells must have been heightened by her transformation to this form as well. She walked and walked and walked but only after about 10 minutes, she finally reached the source of the smell.
It was a shop that was located somewhere in the middle of the city. After a short time, Kalmia went into the store and looked around herself. Everywhere around her there were many colourful displays, filled with the stuff, which that smell originated from. There were some black ones, some that had many colours, some red, some yellow, some green and many more.
She went to the counter. At that counter there was no person standing so she waited there a bit. After a few minutes, finally a Person came.
“Hello, how can I help you?”
“Hello. Can you tell me what all this is?”
“Uhm… We are a confectionery. All the things we sell here are sweets.”
Kalmia didn’t really know what sweets or a confectionery were but she was interested in those colourful things they sell.
“Could I get some of those Red things, some of those black and also some of those colourful ones?”
“Sure. Anything else?”
“No, thanks.”
“Okay, That is two Té.”
Kalmia hands two golden coins, that she took out of a coin bag that Dedrik has given her after employing her, over to the worker behind the counter which in return handed her over a small bag that had 3 scoops of each thing that Kalmia asked for.
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Kalmia looked around for a bit and her view stopped at something that looked like a bread, but softer.
“Also what is that?”
“That’s a cake. They are a bit more expensive but people also tend to like it more.”
“Could I also get a piece of that?”
“Sure. That’s three Té”
Kalmia who still had the coin bag in her hands opened it again and put the three gold coins on the counter. She looked into her coin bag afterwards and looked a bit sad as it is pretty much empty now.
The man behind the counter points into the direction of a small table.
“If you want, you can sit down over there and we will serve you your piece of cake on the table, so you can enjoy it in peace while sitting down, instead of while walking around the city.”
“Thank you, I will take that offer.”
Kalmia went over to the table and sat down on one of the chairs, that stood next to it. They creaked a bit but they seemed sturdy enough to hold her weight.
A few minutes later, the same man as earlier brought her her piece of the cake put it down right in front of her.
Kalmias mouth was already completely filled with salvia. It smelled sweet but there was something else, to it that Kalmia couldn’t really tell. She took a fork and heaved a piece of that cake onto the fork. It looked very soft and was much brighter in dough than the average bread. There were also some weird mushy pieces inside the “cake”.
She put the fork to her mouth and took a bite. She munched on it a bit before putting a big smile on her face. She has never tasted anything like this. It is like soft, sweet bread and… is that an apple taste? She loved everything about that cake.
The cake wasn’t for long before Kalmia has eaten it all. She wanted more however she didn’t have the funds for it any more.
Kalmia left the building and wanted to go back to the inn. After looking left and right however, she didn’t know where she had to go to get back. The sun was already long past its zenith and evening was about to begin. First of all she had to find the way back to the port. She took a turn left and then right and walked down the street that didn’t seem familiar to her. Once she reached the end of the street she took a left turn and came into another street that she didn’t know. This went on for quite a while until the sun sank and Kalmia became brave enough to ask a stranger on the street.
“Hello, could you tell me where I can find the harbour?”
“Get away! I’m in a hurry!”
That certainly wasn’t a good first try. Let’s try it with someone else.
“Good evening sir, could you tell me the way to the harbour?”
“…”
The man just walked past her without paying attention.
Three time’s the charm. She tried it one last time. The man she was about to ask now was rather shady looking however Kalmia lost hope and did what she had to to get back.
“Hello, good sir. Could you tell me how to find to the harbour?”
“Sure, young girl. I can show you the way.”
Kalmia didn’t know, that to the average human that didn’t see he draconic details, she would just look like a helpless young girl.
The man she talked to was wearing rather dark clothes and his nose seemed like is has been broken multiple times. He also had quite a few scars on his face one of which being rather large and going along the right side of his chin.
She followed him mindlessly around some corners until they reached a rather dark alleyway. Kalmia became a bit more defensive. She didn’t know where they were but she knew that walking in paths like these in the dark isn’t safe. Especially as a girl. Without her realizing it someone sneaked up from behind and something hard hit her on the back of her head. She managed to get up again before it went dark before her eyes and she fell over unconciously.
Next thing Kalmia knew was her being chained to a metal pole in some sort of storage facility. Her mouth was stuffed with some kind of cloth so all noises she could emit were very muffled. Her arms were bond to the pole and her legs bound together. They seemed to even have gone out of their way to bind her tail to her body.
Quietly in the distance she could hear them talking.
“She is a god damn DRAGON, Max. What are we supposed to do with her?”
“MAN I didn’t know either! She looked just like a normal girl!”
“Fine… Let’s think about it properly…”
“What’s your plan Merkatur?”
“How about we pull her teeth out and train her to be an obedient slave?”
“She is a dragon Merkatur. Do you think training her would be easy?”
“No, that I don’t… But think about the stacks of gold we would get by selling a trained female dragon!”
“But then all of Selania will be after us!”
“Think about it. They won’t let us go anyways after kidnapping one of their infants. We could turn this around and get someone else in trouble AND get rich!”
“But…”
“Nothing but! You and me! Wel will both get filthy rich. Think about your family!”
“But my family won’t be off any better without their father!”
“Don’t worry! It will be fine! When have my plans not worked out?”
“…True your plans always somehow work out. Thanks to your plans we even managed to rob that snobs house.”
“You see? Let’s get back here tomorrow when she is hungry and desperate for food.”
“Fine… whatever you say Merkatur.”
Kalmia couldn’t do anything but sit there listening to them. Her stomach turned inside out and she felt as if she was about to puke. It may have been the stress but nonetheless she felt even worse and more in danger than even when hunted out of the village.
**CHAPTER 7: END**