My flight turned from bounding to rapid threshing. The sound came from my right, didn’t it? I flew toward it, tending lower. I flew past a high butte. Were the ferns up there waving? The wind didn’t⁠ ⁠—

“Starsnout!”

“Gah!” was my elegant response to the flutter of red and blue that popped from under a fern. “What are you doing here, Staune?”

“Slicktongue went to see Citrusface and Guiltygrin, but didn’t want me to come and screech, no. Nestling said you were heading to these here cliffs, yes.”

I flew on, and the parrot kept pace. “Why me, though?”

“You’re starly,” she said in what I started to hear as my voice.

“Okay. But I need to get to one of my friends. Her name’s Mawla. She’s in danger.”

“Get the fuck off me!” Staune mimed, including (mercifully) the distant volume. The parrot then made a harsh thoughtful sound and said, in Ushra’s voice, “Slicktongue says that’s a bad tone.”

“It means something bad is happening to someone⁠ ⁠—⁠ someone I know.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“We’re going to save her, of course.”

“Perfectly acceptable,” she repeated high in my voice.

I frowned. “Could you ground it, Staune? This is serious. No time for jokes.”

“Acceptable,” she said, and not in my voice.

Staune watched me fly lower, and the parrot asked, “How are we going to save them?”

“We’re going to fly toward the sound and stop whatever’s happening. How else?” I paused in stride, then emended, “I’m going to fly to her. You need to fly back to the gate, though. Tell a guard something is wrong.”

“Unacceptable! I shall come with you, yes.”

“No. The guards need to know.”

“No. I shall come.”

“Fine.” I started banking. “Then we’ll both go back⁠ ⁠—”

Mawla was in danger. What would I do if the guards found her already⁠ ⁠—

What if she was another dragon I couldn’t save?

“No,” I said. “We’ll both fly to her.”

“Acceptable. I shall show you the way. Parrots have good eyes.”

“Um, I can just smell her. I’m a dragon.”

“Follow me, yes. Parrots have good eyes.”

“Staune, I can fly faster than you. Light on my back.” I banked the other way, again aligned for that electric smell. Mawla’s smell.

Staune screeched. Just for a second. I flinched in my flight, almost fell out the sky.

“Staune.”

“I have a plan, yes. Clever parrot. I fly around and you fly straight. Can’t see both us, no.”

“Staune⁠ ⁠—” I shook my head. “Fine. I guess that works.” I shook my head. “But I’m going now.” I angled my wing, poured determination into the vans.

But before I left the parrot, a remembered smell of ash and urine lighted on my mind’s tongue like reminder. I quickly added, “No, I have better idea. You fly around and hide and wait. When I say ‘Now!’ you burst out and surprise them.”

“Acceptable.”

I leapt and flew off.

----------------------------------------

“Kinri is coming and she’ll ground you. You’ll see. She’s definitely coming. Obviously.” Mawla stood panting, backing away. Her ashcloak pressed tight to her.

“The useless Specter. Might I ask where she is? If she’ll bother with you⁠ ⁠—⁠ and why would she?⁠ ⁠—⁠ then what ever is keeping her?” They⁠ ⁠—⁠ he? ⁠ ⁠—⁠ stood a hooded figure. Deep green robes. Menacing toward Mawla with a club in a large wing. Venom dripped from their fangs and it smelt sharper than fermented poison.

I couldn’t see their face, but their voice sounded like a sneer looks, without a trace of anger and their measured steps flowed with patience that knew it wouldn’t wait long.

It made the violence⁠ ⁠—⁠ between the club, the scream, and the leg Mawla clearly wasn’t favoring⁠ ⁠—⁠ so much more puzzling. They seemed calm.

“I don’t know... She had something to handle at the market, I saw her there. But she’s coming. She said she would.” Mawla still spoke it in that high and strained way of hers.

I stood behind a boulder atop a cliff even taller than the one Mawla faced her opponent on. My legs crouched just a little bit more. Breathe. I would leap down to rescue her. Right now, though, I was closer to Mawla’s back than the figure. The hooded dragon would see me first. I had to time it just right.

In a dozen breaths I could be down there, but it would be dozen breaths too long. Even in the growing dusk, my silvery cloak meant the figure would see me like day. Sight didn’t suffer till it was full dark, and the moons were already out.

It would be me alone against them and their club. I didn’t even have Hinte’s knife anymore, like the failure I was. What could I accomplish?

“But she’s busy at the market, isn’t she? Somehow, I know that will keep her away. It isn’t hard to fathom, with how readily she abandoned you before.”

I couldn’t see the yellowbrown wiver’s face, but I breathed relief when she didn’t rise to the bait:

“What did you do to her?” she asked.

“What did she do to herself? Who else but she made the mistake of involving herself in these matters?”

“That green-scaled witch,” she answered. “She doesn’t care about whatever dillershit was in the lake or the market, or whatever reeking matter you’re rattling about. She just wants to bed that alchemist’s daughter.”

“And yet, I do not care. This isn’t about her, and I am not involved in the market operation.”

My forefeet scratched at the dirt under me like I wanted to scratch their eyes. If I could just find a way down there, unseen.

I lay prone on the cliff. Maybe if I slithered to the other edge... but I worried to let Mawla and her attacker out of my sight for a breath.

Mawla was saying, “What is this about, then? Could you give me any excuse before you start a fight on my day off?”

“Oh, oh, where are my manners?” Their tone scorched dry. They continued, “Are you this dreadful to whomever you meet, or are you just as witless as your kind looks?”

Mawla stopped for a beat and brought a wing to her face. “You’re the musician. It’s so obvious.” When the figure lunged at her, the yellowbrown wiver stole back. “Dwylla’s melting rods, are you some kind of hatchling? I kick you once and you decide you ought to hunt me down with a club?”

“Do you think you can treat me like the common trash of this mudpit? I am above you.”

Had to do something. I’d steal back and slither to the other edge. Then I could sneak over, take it out before this got even worse. Quickly I moved, but sneakily.

I couldn’t see them now; and seeing how close Mawla is to getting caught⁠ ⁠—⁠ it put lightning in my legs.

There was a scramble, a yelp, and a woosh and I was at the edge of the cliff again⁠ ⁠—⁠ caution was for later.

What I saw pushed me into a stand, a leap. Mawla had dodged a club swing, but her other wing took the blow.

The positioning was perfect, now. As the stars would have it, Mawla had dodged away from me; and now the musician⁠ ⁠—⁠ Bauume⁠ ⁠—⁠ had his back to me.

I didn’t flap my wings⁠ ⁠—⁠ even though the promise of speed sung to me. I glided stealthily, stealthily. So stealthily, I didn’t even breathe!

When my hindfeet crashed into the hard dirt, when my forefeet closed certainly around that length of the club, when time froze for a breath, I knew the grin on my face was the widest I’d ever had.

It was only matched by its twin on Mawla’s bloody face.

That clarity held for another instant, then it shattered. The figure was twisting. I was groaning as something hit my stomach, coughing as my back slammed the ground straight into my air sacs, and screaming as Mawla leapt forth to help me.

Breathe, Kinri.

I was standing up. My forefeet still held the club, so that worked. I wrenched my gaze. Mawla limped back at an angle, to my side. Following her eyes, there was the musician, staring out of a green hood’s darkness, wings outstretching.

His hood was nothing like the thieves. Instead, it was that deep green that⁠ ⁠—⁠ reminded me of things. The day I met Hinte.

Bauume exhaled in what could be anything from a cough to a laugh to nothing.

“What a shame. I don’t hope, but I thought there was a possibility that one with breeding as overvalued as yours would have sense. But Specters were always self-destructive and worthless.” He spat.

Fire burned in my glands, and I felt the tang dripping from my apertures. That same Specter chill returned to my tongue, but I looked at the wiver.

“Maybe I’m mistaken,” I told her. “I had thought now was the time when he would fly away with his tail between his legs.” I scratched my cheek. “Do you agree, Mawla-ann?” The honorific was a⁠ ⁠—⁠ choice. But I needed Mawla to know I liked her, that the musician’s words were residua.

“Have you forgotten that your name carries nothing down in the mud? I will not take orders from you.”

My legs moved without me, and the club rebounded off the figure’s head with such a crack.

It was⁠ ⁠—⁠ a rush.

I watched the musician peer at me with his head atilt. Cowl shifting as though his jaw were working. Had he thought I wouldn’t?

He spat, and tossed his head upward. “You disgust me.”

When he crouched and took off, I let him. Part of it was because I kinda told him to do that, and part of it was because my bloody, bruised friend was right there.

And what could I⁠ ⁠—⁠ what would I really do if I caught him? What would feel better than a club swing?

I reached out with a wing. It was behind Mawla’s head and I pulled her close as I stepped toward her.

She reached out with a unsteady wing, and it was a hug now.

“Are you okay?”

She laughed. “I grew up on the east side. I got worse as a hatchday present.”

“But right now, are you feeling okay?”

“Yes. I’ll be fine by tomorrow. Have to be if it turns out there’s sifting again.”

“I should take you to Hinte’s. She has⁠ ⁠—”

“No. Thank you.”

“What are you supposed to do?”

“Follow me. I know a drake.”

----------------------------------------

We didn’t get far, Mawla leaning against me to walk, before we had to stop.

I mentioned the sounds, didn’t I? The wind in ferns. The oddly active buzz of insects. The crooning, chirping, whooping. They were all quiet sounds, quiet I think because dragons were nearby. You got used to that quiet, letting your footsteps come softer, letting your reassurances to the dragon beside you go murmured, letting the quiet in.

Then, immersed fully in that utter quietude, you heard it, and you had to stop.

Staune strutted out of the ferns, beak open. Letting out that sound worse than terrified floatrabbit screams, worst than the pangs of House Locrian’s machine timbres.

Mawla started nudging me to get us out of there⁠ ⁠—⁠ but as the sound burned on, the wiver changed her mind, limping claws out toward the bird.

“Staune, please.”

The screech cut off with a sonic huff, and a red and blue head twisted to stare one eyed at me.

Before the sifter reached her, the bird kicked off, went flapping and yapping right at my face. She came up to my snout, even as I drew back, and pecked. There was a spot of red on her black beak, now.

I stared, feet bunching dirt, at the baffling parrot. She flapped up some more height and lighted on my snout. The parrot, as tall as my leg, had such a high judging angle.

“Liar.”

The yellowbrown wiver, already turned round and stepping gropingly toward the bird, paused at that. You could watch how her expression mutated: for the first time, she heard something besides a dragon speak, with a brain the size of her clenched foot. Even I’d flinched first time I heard a bird speak, and I’d had a noble’s diet of strangeness. It probably upset her whole world, hearing a parrot talk.

Also, it was her voice.

The accusing word stopped the wiver only a breath, though, and she kept forward, reached out a foreleg.

“Mawla, no. She’s a friend.”

She peered. “That the alchemist’s demon-parrot?”

“Well⁠ ⁠—”

She peered closer. “No, color’s wrong. It’s the purple one you gotta watch out for.”

Still the yellowbrown wiver grabbed the parrot. Wrenched her off my snout. Then Staune fluttered free, and pecked Mawla too.

Fleeing now, the bird found another fern beside the the path she could light on and still look down at me.

“You liar.”

“What’s wrong, Staune?”

“You lied. Said Staune would help, yes. She was ready to help, yes. You called for to help, no. You did it all yourself.”

She spoke with her bouncy parroty voice, yet it singed like it was hot with anger.

“Staune, the plan went wrong as soon as I got there.”

“You saved Mawla, yes.”

“But I wanted to ambush him! He wasn’t supposed to have a club...”

My voice said, “When I say ‘Now!’, you jump out and surprise them.”

“I had to fly over quick and save her! It was over in instants. “There was no time to call for you.”

Quietly, that warbling mixture of Ushra and Hinte⁠ ⁠—⁠ Staune’s voice – said, “You forgot me.”

I took a step back despite myself. Another denial was already rushing up my throat but I pushed it down. Maybe it was instinct, like I could tell the tides of conversation, feel it shifting deeper.

Staune’s head had fallen low, almost hidden in the wings hugging herself.

I looked around. Mawla had stepped twelve paces away, back turned. She leaned against the cliff wall, looked toward the town. Cowl of her ashcloak pulled up, I couldn’t her face⁠ ⁠—⁠ and she couldn’t see us.

With that measure of privacy, I looked back to Staune. Considered a few seconds, then reached again for that older, Specterly voice, one deep and stormy. It was more than a voice.

“Staune.” I frowned just a moment, then said, “Why do you think I forgot you?”

The answer had been easy to read. But she made it easier still and said, “I was useless.”

I licked a brille. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, Staune.” Ushra would kill me.

She opened her beak. “You’re just like Wrinklyfrills. Lying to help.”

It would have hurt.

Still, I kept going. “But you aren’t useless. Listen, can you fly back to the gate? Make sure that drake doesn’t come back through there. Tell the guard if they’ll listen. Can you do all that?”

She screeched, just an instant more. I saw Mawla turn, ready to do⁠ ⁠—⁠ something.

I said, “If you can’t...”

Staune kicked off, fluttered toward town. Instead of walking that same direction, I fell down on my haunches, buried my head in my wings, heaved a sigh, and let my sour or bitter or tasteless or untastable venom dew and flow.

Mawla returned with a poke.

“I would let you have your moment, obviously, but I – we kinda do have to get back, do something about this wing. And everything else.”

“I feel like crap. I am a terrible friend.”

“Yeah, no. I barely know you, and you’re great. I don’t think too many of my friends would have bought me out of that. You did.”

This time, a wing slapped against my back. “So get up.”

“I saved you, sure, but I forgot Staune.”

“And I’m more important. Get up.”

“I manipulated her.”

“You said the right words, like a good friend. Get up.”

“I’m just like⁠ ⁠—”

“Get Up already!” Strong feet gripped my sides and lifted. I was held in the air then dropped on my fours. The sifter returned my earlier hug.

Mawla looked back with an unamused line. “Now come on.”

Frowning, cloying on my fangs and tail around my legs, I walked us toward the southern gate without meeting Mawla’s eye.

* * *