Chapter Four Hundred and Twenty-Seven - Acidic Reaction

The appearance of a Dragon had a certain gravitas to it.

It was, after all, a dragon.

A skinny green dragon, maybe half-again the length of an adult wyvern, more or less. It was hard to tell how big it was when the dragon was swooping past like a bird of prey, only the sky behind it to give any reference to its sheer size.

The dragon roared, and I folded my ears down at the sheer power of that noise. It felt like it should have been strong enough to blast me right off the deck of the Beaver. The dragon dove down, rushing past the Beaver then back up between the Red Whale and the Firestrike.

I turned towards Caprica, I had to tell her something, urgently. “Contact Raynold, now! Tell him not to let Abraham pick a fight with the dragon!”

“Why would he do that, it’s so stu-- right, let me send them a message spell,” she said.

I turned back around and refocused on the dragon. It was flying slow-looking circles around the Red Scourge. Slow-looking, because it was still faster than any airship that I’d ever seen, but it still felt as if the dragon wasn’t trying very hard, with slow ponderous wingbeats.

“Wait, I recognize that dragon,” Amaryllis said.

I stared at her, then snapped my attention back to the dragon. A younger green dragon... not too far from Port Royal as the dragon flies... “Cholondee?” I asked.

The dragon’s head snapped around to my direction, even though it might have been well over a kilometre away. She did a final loop of the Red Scourge. The pirates onboard the airship were running around in a panic. She looked like they were trying to aim their many ballistae, but I wasn’t sure if they’d do anything to a dragon.

Cholondee flew on over towards the Beaver and I squeaked as it came closer and closer without slowing down much at all.

At the very last moment, Cholondee shifted her wings up and beat them once.

My feet slid on the deck as I was pushed back by the wind. I had to shield my face with both arms against the blast. Amaryllis was sent tumbling back with a squawk, and my other friends stumbled back as well. Caprica was almost thrown over the edge, but she beat her own wings and flew back down to the deck.

There was a loud and very discomforting crunch sound, followed by a draconic ‘oops.’

I blinked, then took in the sight of a large green dragon hanging off the side of the Beaver with her forearms. The rails where she gripped onto the ship were snapped and splintered.

“Cholondee!” I said. “You broke the ship!”

Cholondee’s head reeled back. Then she snaked it in closer to glare at me. “How is it my fault that your ship isn’t welcoming to dragons?” she rumbled. The top of her spiny head was brushing against the canvas of the balloon above, and I was increasingly worried that her horns would rip through.

Then I noticed that she was wearing a hat. A small--for a dragon--fedora.

“Nice hat,” I said.

“Broccoli,” Caprica hissed. “That’s a dragon.”

“Uh... yes? Oh! Right! Cholondee, this is my friend Caprica, from Sylphfree, that’s Calamity, from way up north on the other side of the Harpy Mountains, and I don’t think you met the rest of the crew either.”

Cholondee’s nostrils flared. “A princess?” she asked.

“Yeah!”

A large tongue rasped across draconic lips. “Broccoli, you shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, uh... we’re going to Port Royal to see your brother’s wedding!”

Cholondee blinked twice, then huffed, and I gripped onto my own hat to stop it from flying off. “Well, I wouldn’t be the best sister ever if I ate his wedding gift,” she said.

I suspected that there was a misunderstanding at play. “Caprica’s not for eating,” I said. “She’s a friend. And friends don’t eat friends.”

Cholonee tilted her head to the side to give me a piercing look with one massive cat-like eye. “Well, whatever,” she said. “So are these other ships carrying stuff for you?”

“Oh, no, they’re pirates,” I said.

“Are... you a pirate?” Cholondee asked.

I shook my head. “No. Those three ships, with the red wing symbol on them, have been chasing us for a while. I think they want to rob us.”

“You gave them a bloody nose already,” Cholondee said as she snaked her head around to look back at the three ships. The Red Scourge was still untouched, but the other two were trailing smoke.

“It’s not enough to stop them yet,” I said. “The other little ship, the Shady Lady is a friend’s ship. They’re helping us, but we’re in a spot of trouble, I think.”

Cholondee turned back to me. “You’re much stronger than when we last met, riftwalker. It’s hard to tell how strong little people are, though, can’t you crush them all on your own?”

“Uh... well, I guess some of my friends and I are pretty strong, but we’re only so strong, and there are a lot of pirates, plus a few of them are probably strong too. They’re pirates, after all, so they probably fight and do bad things all day long, which means that they’re probably pretty good at that sort of thing.”

“Hmm,” the dragon said. “Give me a moment.” She launched herself off of the Beaver’s side, splintering more of the ship’s rails and making the entire ship shift to the side.

“That... might be bad,” I said.

“I imagine the pirates are thinking the same thing,” Amaryllis said. “No one wants to fight a dragon. You especially don’t want to fight a dragon in the sky.”

Caprica came over, then stepped closer to where Cholondee had gripped onto the Beaver. “It made a mess of the ship’s side,” she said. “You know, the Sylphfree navy have fought back dragons before. We’ve even killed a few.”

I held back a gasp. Not in shock, but more in pity. It... hurt to know that people would want to hurt dragons, but then again, dragons were a little hard to befriend compared to some others.

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“What were you telling it?” Caprica asked.

“Was I talking in dragon?” I asked. At their nods, I went over the discussion again. Caprica didn’t seem happy that Cholondee had sniffed out her princessness, but otherwise, there wasn’t too much bad news. Cholondee was nice, if a little... brusque, so I couldn’t see her doing anything too mean to us.

The damage on the Beaver’s hull, aside.

“What is it doing?” Calamity asked as he followed the dragon with his gaze.

“She,” I corrected.

“Right, she,” he said.

“And, uh, I have no idea.”

Cholondee circled around the other ships for a moment, then she came flying down along the side of the Red Scourge. Her chest puffed out, swelling even as something glowed within her and illuminated her green scales and outlined her ribs.

Then she breathed down at the ship while roaring past it.

Billowing clouds of green smoke washed out ahead of her and rolled across the Red Scourge’s topdeck. It was so thick and heavy that the smoke came pouring off the other side of the deck like viscous waters.

I held my hands over my mouth as I watched the tiny distant figures of the pirates running around in a panic. The ship turned hard, and one of the ballistae at the back fired, but its bolt went wide.

Then the crew seemed far too busy running around to take care of Cholondee. She flew around the back of the ship and spat at one of its larger engines. There was a small explosion a moment later.

Cholondee returned to us, looking smug, like a cat who’d caught a mouse.

“Will they be okay?” I asked.

“The pirates?” Amaryllis asked. “Green dragon breath is poisonous in large concentrations. And acidic. That gob of spit probably melted the engine back there. So they have a fire, acid burns, and a poisoned crew to deal with, I’d be surprised if...” Amaryllis looked at me for a moment, and her satisfied look faded before she cleared her throat. “I’m sure they’ll be fine, don’t worry about it, Broccoli.”

I sniffed. It was nice that Amaryllis was willing to lie to make me feel better.

Cholondee slowed down well before reaching the Beaver this time. By the time her forepaws crunched into the rails again, the pirates were in full retreat.

The Red Whale and Firestrike were still smoking, though it looked like their crews were working to patch the ships up. The Red Scourge was limping away, only slowly turning back the way they’d come.

That was probably for the best.

But it did leave us with a curious dragon to deal with. “Thanks, Cholondee,” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders. “It was easy. Besides, I don’t like pirates much.”

“You don’t?” I asked.

She shook her head. “They’re bad for business. See, my guys extort people in the port, and if pirates get to people, then they bring in less stuff, so I can’t take as much from them.”

“Uh, you extort people that land at the port?” I asked.

She grinned, which reminded me that dragons had big teeth. “I’ll let you have a discount,” she said.

“What’s the dragon saying?” Caprica asked. I explained real quick, which set Caprica to frowning. “But that’s extortion.”

“I only take a percentage,” Cholondee reasoned. “If I take too much, then the merchants won’t come back.” She’d switched languages, from dragon to something my friends understood, which was nice. Talking in dragon was hard on the throat.

“That... that’s still extortion,” Caprica said.

“Don’t you have taxes where you’re from, princess?” Cholondee asked. She sounded genuinely curious.

“Of course, but those taxes go towards improving infrastructure and keeping citizens safe!” Caprica said.

“My port is very nice and strong, so that I can walk around it, and I keep people safe,” Cholondee said. “Just ask those pirates.” She gestured back with her head towards where the pirates were running.

The gesture punched a hole clean through the tarp of our balloon, and a loud hissing sound filled with air.

“That was there already,” Cholondee said.

“Awen!” I shouted. “We have holes!”

“Awa?” Came Awen’s reply from within her ball turret. “G-give me a minute! I’ll be right there.”

The Scallywags were a little worried about Cholondee at first, they seemed like they wanted to hide more than help, but then the hole just continued to hiss and Clive cleared his throat from the helm. “Captain, don’t mean to urge you on, but we’re losing altitude.”

That got them moving, because dragons might be a little scary, but so was crashing.

Cholondee watched the crew get to work patching up the few holes we’d gotten. “You know, there’s people in Port Royal that can fix your ship up for you.”

“Ah, but we need to make it to Port Royal for that to matter,” I said.

She hummed. “You should grow wings. Flying is much nicer than riding around in one of these flammable airboats.”

“I think I would like to fly,” I said. “I’ve flown on dragons and wyverns and of course on airships, and they all seem like nice ways to get around, though I wonder what it’d be like to fly under my own power. Maybe next time, instead of growing some ears, I’ll get some wings!”

The dragon nodded, then she glared up at the balloon which was forcing her to squeeze in. “Right, I’ll fly around for a while. Maybe head back home or grab something to eat. You should add a perch if you insist on flying in this thing.”

I nodded. That was a good idea. Maybe Awen could make a deployable dragon perch?

I said my goodbyes to Cholondee who launched herself off the Beaver’s side. Clive came up to me a moment later. “Hmm, didn’t wanna mention anything while the dragon was here, but the weight wasn’t helping us keep afloat.”

“Really? I guess that makes sense. And to think, she’s the youngest dragon I know. Her mom is bigger than the Beaver, I think.”

***