I felt absolutely ridiculous. There I was, eight feet tall sitting down, with scales and hide that would take a siege weapon to pierce and teeth and claws that could shred flesh like paper, and I was nervous. I was nervous about whether our staff would accept me or not.
Nobody had run up the stairs. Nobody was screaming. The first impression had been pretty good, considering that we’d surprised them with, well… me. Reben, the manager, was mumbling rapidly under his breath, while his daughter tended to the two girls who had fainted. Other than that everyone was mostly calm.
Except for Relki. It didn’t bode entirely well that he, the thirteen year-old boy we’d taken in off the street, was standing in front of his out-cold sister and looking like he expected me to pounce at any moment. He needed to be taken care of before anyone else.
“Relki,” I said in what I hoped was a calm, soothing voice, “you’re both safe here.”
“I won’t let you touch her!” he squeaked out, raising his chin and squaring his stance.
“Rel…” Herald groaned beside me.
“I can see that,” I told him. “You’re a good brother, yeah? You look out for your sister. The first time we met you did your best to protect her, too, didn’t you? I respect that. And I promise you that I have no intention of hurting anyone here. Not your sister, not you, not anyone.”
“In— In the alley—!” he stuttered, looking uncertain. He wanted to believe me, I was sure of it. It's much more comfortable to not think that the dragon wants to hurt you, after all.
“In the alley you were following me and my sisters, and reporting on us to the Night Blossom’s people. You were putting my sisters in danger. That's not a concern anymore, is it?”
“N— no?”
“You like living here? Everyone’s treating you well?”
“I mean… yeah.”
“Besides, I’ve been told that you've both been doing good work around the inn. Why would I want to hurt a loyal employee? Good help is hard to find, or so I’ve been told.”
“He’s a great help in the kitchen, isn’t he, Memmy?” Mak asked, and Reben’s daughter, who ran said kitchen, looked up.
“As you say, Lady Drakonum,” she answered unsteadily, eyes flicking from Mak to me and back.
Reben’s other granddaughter looked up from where she was fanning her sister on the floor, and anxiously asked, “But what if we want to leave?”
“If you leave, we won’t hold it against you. Even if I find out that you’ve told other people that I’m staying here. I hope that none of you will do either, but you are free to go. Nothing has changed from when you woke up this morning. I hope that you will keep this secret for now. I’m not making any demands. I’m asking you to do me a courtesy. But nothing will happen to you if you don’t, except that I won’t be able to trust you. And if I can’t trust you, neither can your bosses here.”
This apparently worried one of the maids enough to overcome her shock. “So, they'd— they'd make us leave?” she asked, worrying her hands. “Please! I need the work!”
“Then… don’t tell anyone? Or, I’m sure Mak or Reben would give you a good reference, or something?” I said, giving Mak an uncertain look. “Is that a thing you do here?”
“If you mean a letter of recommendation, then yes,” she said.
“Good. But that won't be a concern if you just don't talk about me.”
“R— right,” the maid said. “Not talk about the dragon in the cellar. I can do that.”
“Uh… huh,” I answered her skeptically, but she seemed confident enough to not hear my tone. “Do you all think that you can handle that?”’
There was a mumbled chorus of affirmatives.
“Good. Brilliant, even! Then… thank you, for taking this so well. You can all go back to your duties, and those girls should probably have somewhere more comfortable to rest. We can do introductions later. I understand if you’ll be wary of coming down here for a little while, but I really do want to get to know all of you. I’m been told I’m not as bad as I look.”
“You look like a damned dragon! How’re you so damned polite?” one of the two silent maids burst out, then covered her mouth with both hands and gave off a tiny, horrified “Oh!” at what she’d just said.
“Lina!” Reben snapped. He’d stopped praying, or debating with himself, or whatever he’d been doing, and had apparently decided that the whole situation was out of his hands, and that he was going to roll with it. “That’s Lady Drakonum’s sister you’re talking to! Mind your language and apologize!”
The maid called Lina blinked, then looked at me wide-eyed. It was the first fear I’d seen on her, and I found it pretty funny that she was more worried about having just been rude to someone than she had been about being in an enclosed space with a dragon. Maybe she’d been in shock before? Whatever the case might be, she jerked into a bow and exclaimed. “Oh, oh gods and Mercies! I’m sorry, Mister Reben! Miss Draka!”
“I prefer ‘lady’, or no title at all,” I told her gently, trying to keep the corners of my mouth under control.
She took a moment to think about that before answering. No doubt she was considering how only the senior woman of a House was titled “lady,” and how Mak and I had claimed to be sisters. There was already a Lady Drakonum, so was it correct to title me “lady?”
She clearly came to the conclusion that the answer to the question, “What do you call a dragon?” was, “Whatever the dragon tells you to.”
“Yes, Lady Draka! Of course!”
“Right,” I said after all the staff had left. Sana had to be carried up the stairs, but the maid who’d passed out had woken up and made it on her own, after swearing never to speak of me. “That went well, all things considered! How long do you figure until one of them blabs?”
The word would get out. That was just how it was. The important thing was that most of them had calmed down after the initial shock. The next few days would tell how comfortable they really were about having me around. I still couldn’t help but smile as I said it. Someone would talk, sooner or later. There were ten of them, for God’s sake! Relki and Sana were kids, the three maids were barely adults, and neither of Memmy’s daughters were much older. And being a grown-up was in no way a guarantee that someone could keep a secret.
So, how long until one of them talked?
“I give it a week before the rumors start,” Tam said. “But that’s only down from two weeks based on Draka using the yard to take off and land. I just hope they’re discreet about it so we don’t have to fire anyone.”
Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
“We’re in agreement on that, then?” Mak asked.
Tam nodded slowly. “I mean, you’re the head of the family. It’s up to you in the end. But I don’t think any of them would talk out of malice. I just don’t think they can all keep their mouths shut.”
“You know, I do not think it would hurt our business,” Herald said thoughtfully.
“Really?” I asked. “Having a dragon wouldn’t make people stay away?”
“There is a benefit to having a clientele of mostly adventurers,” Val said. “Most wouldn’t want to look easily frightened, so I doubt many of them would be put off. Some may even be drawn by the rumors. They’d be free publicity, wouldn’t they? We’ll just have to take precautions about people trying to sneak in here. Bar the doors tightly, and such.”
“Eh, I’m not worried. It wouldn’t be practical to bar the doors during the day, but if the door opens it’s easy enough for me to Shift until I know who’s coming, no different from before today. And it’s not like I’ll be sleeping where anyone sneaking in could see me, so if anyone gets in at night they won’t see anything, anyway.”
“What if they break into the strongroom?” Tam asked.
“Then they deserve whatever happens to them.”
“Right. Silly question.”
----------------------------------------
Not much happened after I was introduced to the staff, but I felt a whole lot better about myself. The only difference was that I spent the rest of the day in the main cellar instead of in the strongroom. Previously I would have Shifted and hid, for their sakes. Now I didn’t hide, and some of them had no choice but to see me as they went about their jobs.
The next day was more eventful. First, Sana came down to see me in the morning. Or rather she was brought down by Lina, with Relki hovering protectively. Lina had come down several times the day we first met, and quickly decided that since she’d already insulted me and nothing had happened I must be safe, and treated me as something between a boss, an honored guest, and a child. It was… weird, but rather nice, really. Except for Lahnie nobody had ever taken to me quite so fast, not even Garal or Herald, and I somewhat regretted not meeting her earlier.
“Come now, Sana!” she’d said as the younger girl stood glued to the last step of the stairs. “One step closer! Lady Draka is perfectly gentle and polite. Aren’t you, Lady Draka?”
Sana’s eyes had been on my partially extended claws since she came down, and I carefully retracted them. “Sure am.”
Lina got Sana off the step, and gently pushed her forwards. “And she just wants to get to know us, and maybe even become friends. Don’t you, Lady Draka?”
“Right again.”
Sana quickly looked at Herald, who was reading on the bench next to me. She just smiled and nodded, then poked me with her foot before going back to her scroll, as if to show how harmless I was.
Sana allowed herself to be pushed another couple of small steps, to within a few feet of me, but that was where she drew the line. I did get a quick, “Pleased to meet you, Lady Draka,” before she fled, which was progress as far as I was concerned.
Then, around midday there was a message from Sempralia, asking me for another meeting. Same time, same place. With no reason to decline we simply replied that I’d be there.
Finally, in the afternoon Barro showed up at the inn. That in itself was nothing unusual. He wasn’t a part of the crew, so to speak, but he visited every so often as he was bound to me to some degree, and was rather friendly with the others. This time, though, he had Ramban with him.
I’d asked Barro, several weeks before, to see if the scholar was interested in learning more about the mysterious entity that he’d encountered under my mountain together with his colleague Tavia. I’d scared the absolute piss out of them, and Tavia had washed her hands of the whole thing, but Ramban had been cautiously positive.
Apparently he’d gotten braver with time. As his courage and curiosity grew, his patience withered. He’d found Barro some time ago, and had hounded him to actually put him in touch with someone who could answer a few questions. Barro had finally decided that he’d just bring the old scholar to the inn and ask Mak or Herald to talk to him. Or so he told me when we spoke, while Ramban sat upstairs in the common room having a late lunch.
“Maybe I could have stalled him, and told him that I’d get back to him, but he was pretty worked up about the whole thing. And you do want to talk to him, right? Try to get something out of him?”
“I do, yeah. I just… honestly, with everything that’s happened I forgot about him. Priorities and all that. I think I owe some thanks for reminding me.”
“Appreciated, madam, but not necessary. I’m still living well on that dragon you paid me.”
“Still. Thanks. Would you find Mak and bring her and Ramban down here?
“You’re going straight to a face-to-face meeting?”
“Yeah, why not? Everyone’s going to know of me in a few days, anyway. Two weeks, tops. Might as well give him a head start.”
When Barro returned with Mak and Ramban I was not quite as kind as I had been with the staff. I waited, Shifted, beneath the stairs, next to the lift used to bring barrels and heavy bags up to the kitchen. Mak, clever as she was and no doubt sensing my intentions, led Ramban to the back of the cellar. “Wait here,” she told him, glancing in my direction. “I’ll return in a moment, and then you’ll meet her. Barro, come with me, would you?”
“Oh, uh, of course,” he said, following Mak up the stairs. I wasn’t sure what her intentions were, but by the way she’d emphasized her words I figured she must have a plan, and that I should sit tight until she came back down.
Ramban walked around, looking at things in the cellar, not seeming too bothered about the fact that he’d been left alone. Music started up above us. It was the mournful string instrument that I’d heard many times before during the day, played by one of Mak’s adventurer friends, but this time it was accompanied by Avjilan’s beautiful voice.
Soon Mak returned, alone. “There,” she said, approaching Ramban and turning him around. I was, I suspected, time for another little prank. “Draka, if you would?”
With that I moved out from under the stairs and Shifted back. With no time to warm up I did my best to match the voice I’d used when I spoke to him, Tavia and Barro in the tunnels under my mountain.
“Hello, Scholar Ramban,” I said, my voice rumbling through the cellar.
Ramban turned around. When he saw me he didn’t scream, or cower, or try to run. Instead he looked me up and down, studying me with great interest, before a satisfied smile split his face and he exclaimed, “I thought so!”
His reaction was… not what I’d expected. I blinked. I looked at him closely, trying to find any sign that he was just hiding the terror he must obviously be feeling. I saw nothing. Finally I just said, “What?”
“What?” Ramban said right back. Not aping me. As far as I could tell, he was genuinely confused by my reaction. “Oh! Yes, I should explain myself, perhaps. You see, uh… what may I call you?”
“She prefers ‘Lady Draka,’” Mak suggested, as perplexed by Ramban’s reaction as I was.
“A pleasure, then, Lady Draka. As I was saying, I’d heard of your presence in the city, of course. No one who knows anything could possibly be ignorant of it at this point, not after the harbor and the Forum. And I’d heard it said that you were often seen around this inn. When Mister Barro asked me to follow him here, of all places, to speak with someone who might know more about the tunnel complex we unearthed, well… I wasn’t certain, but I did hope and suspect! Who would be more likely to know about that place than a dragon?”
As he finished he held his hands out wide to the sides, as if to show how complete and unassailable his argument was. I wasn’t entirely convinced. But he was right, so fair dinkum to him.
“Nah, yeah! Sure. Well, you’re partially correct. I know things about that mountain, and those tunnels, that I’m sure you’d love to learn. In return I want your help.”
The moment I showed that I was willing to work with him, Ramban started slowly nodding his head. “Yes, yes, of course, Lady Draka! I would love to collaborate with you! How shall we proceed?”
“We can… talk? I’d like to know how you found out about those tunnels, and what you were looking for.”
“And there are many things I would like to know, but how do we ensure that neither of us is taken advantage of? Normally we would sign a collaborative agreement in front of witnesses, which would stipulate—”
As Ramban spoke excitedly I looked at Mak, who looked just as confused as I felt. The scholar was going on about attributions and rights of publication, and I just cut him off.
“Ramban. Shut up, would you?”
He stopped mid-ramble. His mouth was still open, and he closed it with a click.
“Ramban, I’m not a scholar. I’m not going to be publishing anything. I’d prefer if you didn’t either, at least not for some time. But I will tell you anything I know that doesn’t threaten me or mine, and expect you to do the same. That’s the agreement. I’ll even go first. But if you agree, and then go back on your word… I’m a dragon.” I leaned in, letting my shadow swell until it swallowed all but the faintest light, and dropped my voice. “Don’t.”
There, in the darkness, he finally recognized me.