The toast was actually pretty good when separated from the charcoal; Kaln found the crispy texture of twice-cooked fluffy northern bread delightful, particularly when it was used in its intended purpose as a vector for butter and jam. The bacon was edible, once he showed Pheneraxa how to drain it. Percy didn’t have more than a nibble, but Pheneraxa was a carnivore and Kaln liked his food a little burnt. And his eggs, in the end, were okay.
Breakfast was altogether quite pleasant, more because of the company than the food. Kaln did not for a second regret any of the waste that resulted from letting Pheneraxa try her claw at cooking. It was fun—a warm, bright interaction with other people over a shared meal. Something he was only just beginning to realize how sorely he had missed.
It was a most agreeable distraction from Kaln’s worries—over the general future from here, how he was going to provide a comfortable living space for Percy, and at the forefront of his mind now, Izayaroa. He both did and did not regret saying the things which had sent her off in a rage. He’d been right, and it had needed to be said. For now, he could only hope she would come around. In the meantime…
Kaln’s inner debate about what to do next was preempted when Pheneraxa let a comment slip.
“City?” Percy repeated, sitting bolt upright. “A Timekeeper city?”
“Didn’t you already show her that?” Kaln asked. “I thought you gave her the whole tour yesterday!”
“I believe she’s seen more of the complex than you have,” Pheneraxa countered. “But with specific exceptions. Mother was using the library, remember? I doubt she’d have objected to me bringing Percy past her, but…the combination of a squishy little human and the mere possibility of Mother’s annoyance prompted me to an excess of caution, and I stand by that decision.”
“I’ve certainly never been called squishy before,” Percy said, frowning. “I do say there’s something rather condescending about that.”
“Yes, my apologies, it was an ill-considered turn of phrase,” Pheneraxa agreed. “I let poetic license carry me away from accuracy. Considering the bone to flesh ratio, bipedal humanoids would be better described as crunchy.”
“Oh, I see,” Percy said pensively. “I think that’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Thank you.”
Pheneraxa blinked, opened her mouth, and looked generally flummoxed. Hiding a smile, Kaln stepped in to rescue her. After a judicious pause, of course.
“Well, Emeralaphine is asleep in her chambers, which makes it a perfect time to show Percy the library—and what is beyond the library. If everyone’s finished, shall we?”
----------------------------------------
“Incredible!”
The second they were through the doors, Percy let out that exclamation and rushed forward, bracing her hands against the ancient Timestone balustrade to lean out over the edge, the overgrown city spread out before her.
“Heh, that’s exactly how I first—”
“Look at the sky up here! The view of the stars has to be unparalleled! I can’t believe I wasted last night indoors!”
“…not exactly how I first reacted,” Kaln corrected himself, blinking. “Hm. Looks like it rained pretty heavily last night.”
Puddles lay across the landing onto which they’d emerged, and the leaves of the nearby climbing vines were still dripping heavily. The sky, however, was a brilliant deep blue, crossed by only a few faint wisps of cloud.
“Really,” Pheneraxa drawled, “at a time like this, your first thought is to chat about the weather?”
“Don’t be disingenuous, Pheneraxa, you know very well why that was relevant. We stayed inside last night because there was a massive forest fire. That it rained a lot is important. Not to mention incredibly timely.”
“Incredibly is right,” she agreed, now watching Percy as the princess craned her neck this way and that to peer around. “You should know, Kaln, that weather magic is the kind of irresponsible act with unpredictable and wide-ranging complications that no sensible mage ever engages in. Mother has lectured me repeatedly on this subject, and would undoubtedly be hugely offended if anyone suggested she had ever done it herself. I am sure it is a pure coincidence that we frequently have unseasonable storms just as a big fire gets going in the nearby forest. That she dislikes the smell of wood smoke is surely just unrelated trivia.”
“That is an interesting piece of entirely tangential and irrelevant gossip,” Kaln said solemnly. “I’m sure it would be a waste of time to bring it up in Emeralaphine’s hearing.”
“Not to mention hazardous to your health.”
“A dragon dislikes the smell of smoke?” Percy asked, turning back to face them. “Huh. That must be…extremely tiresome for her.”
“As Kaln mentioned yesterday, different kinds of smoke have different smells,” Pheneraxa said, smiling. “It’s wood smoke specifically. Mother has had a very long and interesting life; I suspect it’s associative. Smell is a powerful trigger of memory, even with the diminished sensory impact of a dragon’s greater form.”
“Diminished impact?” Blinking, Percy tilted her head.
“There are a lot of fascinating things about dragons to learn,” said Kaln. “More to the point, Percy, please don’t mention any of this to or around Emeralaphine. Ever.”
“Oh? Okay.”
“She’s not dense, Kaln,” Pheneraxa said irritably, the tip of her tail lashing.
“No, on the contrary, I appreciate clarifications,” Percy said earnestly. “I did not make that association right away. I often don’t make associations other people seem to expect. So…sorry in advance if I’m rude. It’s never on purpose.”
“Oh.” The dragon looked bemused by this turn. “Well, then…duly noted.”
“But this really is amazing!” Percy continued more enthusiastically, turning back to look out across the valley. “I’ve never heard of a Timekeeper ruin this huge! It really is a whole city. I’m no archaeologist but even I know how important this must be. Who knew the dragons were just sitting on this for all these years? Also…if there’s a whole uninhabited city right here, why do I need to sleep in Kaln’s room?”
“The only thing more dangerous than an abandoned city is a mostly abandoned city, Percy,” Kaln explained. “Though the Timekeeper architecture itself is still intact, that place is full of natural hazards that have accumulated over the centuries. Rock slides, waterfalls, and tree overgrowth have made it difficult to navigate, and more of them could happen at any time as the surrounding cliffs decay. And that’s not even touching on the living dangers. There are no large predators or other animals this close to the dragons, but it’s the small ones you have to worry about. Snakes, scorpions, spiders; I have the Phantom Legion patrolling here, but I’m not sure how effective even they would be against that. Keeping pests out is a constant, ongoing struggle in cities, and requires massive organization, numerous specialists and unskilled laborers, and well-enforced public health codes. One person, basically camping in one of the buildings? The whole valley is a habitat for potentially venomous critters, and they would all go right to you to get at whatever supplies you kept. And you’d be out here, isolated. If something happened…there’s no telling if we would even notice, much less reach you in time.”
He joined her at the rail while he talked; by the end, Percy was nodding, wearing a frown.
“I see. That makes sense, thank you for explaining. I wouldn’t have thought about that. Also, it belatedly occurs to me that my suggestion was rather ungrateful, considering all the effort you put forth to create a lovely residence for me. I apologize, Kaln, for speaking so thoughtlessly. I very much appreciate all you’ve done for me.”
“I was not offended, but I accept your apology,” he said, smiling.
“Is it too unsafe to explore? Because I’ve never thought of myself as an adventurous person, but I think if I stand this close to the only extant Timekeeper city and don’t actually go poke around in it a bit I will never be able to sleep again.”
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“Well, it depends.” He half-turned to regard her thoughtfully. “How experienced are you with, shall we call it…wilderness exploration?”
“Well! If you define ‘wilderness exploration’ to include occasional walks in the palace gardens and very rare, heavily supervised visits to city parks for some formal occasion…then still, not very.” Percy winced, looking away. “Franz—that’s my stepbrother—calls me one of Boisverd’s great indoorswomen. So, um…never mind, I guess.”
“Now, hold on,” Kaln said gently. “While I still wouldn’t recommend trying to live in that city as it is, a lot of it remains very walkable. I’ve wandered pretty far into there, myself, and nothing happened. As long as you stay clear of any ledges or flooded areas and watch your step, and don’t go into any dark buildings where the gods only know what might be lurking, it’s probably fine. What I’d recommend is that you don’t go in there alone, Percy. But it’s hard to be any safer than in the company of a dragon. They can ward off basically any danger, and even if a mishap occurs… Well, dragons know a lot of magic, even the young ones. Right, Pheneraxa?”
“It depends on the dragon,” Pheneraxa mused. “Any of the elders, yes, absolutely. Very little could breach their protection, and certainly nothing out there. Not that I’d recommend asking any of them to escort you on a walk, but I can certainly look out for a friend. I know about as much healing magic as the average adventuring cleric, at least.”
“Really?” Kaln asked, raising his eyebrows. “I’ve gotta say, I didn’t take you for a medically minded person.”
She raised her chin haughtily. “My mother believes in a well-rounded education, a priority with which I wholeheartedly concur.”
“Are all dragons your age so…powerful and versatile?” Percy asked, blinking. “What about…um, your siblings? Vanimax and the green one?”
Kaln had to repress his amusement, both at her and at Pheneraxa’s reaction. From a lot of people, Percy’s question could have been taken as fawning obsequiousness, but she simply looked curious and maybe a little confused. Poor Pheneraxa strikingly resembled her mother in that moment: torn between flattery and annoyance.
“Yes, well…generally, I should think. I have no idea what magic those two know. Neither of them are exactly great thinkers, but it would be absurd for dragons our age not to possess a significant arsenal of spells.”
“I think it’s very sad that you don’t get along with your siblings,” Percy stated with a straightforward frankness that Kaln could only envy. “I would hate to imagine life without Franz. I still miss my birth parents, especially my father, but now I have a brother and two new mothers and they are most of what makes life seem worth it.”
Pheneraxa stared at her, obviously at a complete loss. Percy, though, turned away to frown across the cityscape spread out below them.
“They must be so upset,” she said, so quietly Kaln could only just make out the words. “I…am going to miss them a lot. But…this was the right thing. They’ve been good to me and I was only ever a problem. It’ll be better for them now…”
Mouth hanging slightly open, Pheneraxa drew her eyebrows together in an expression of utter befuddlement. After a second she turned helplessly to Kaln, eyes pleading.
He glanced between her and Percy, thought rapidly, and reached out with his senses to check on the dragons throughout the mountain. What he discerned made him decide to take a chance here.
“Pheneraxa is the most well-read person I know,” said Kaln, “and that is really saying something; I literally grew up in a library. Well, I suppose Emeralaphine has probably read more, but Pheneraxa is catching up at a phenomenal rate. If you’re curious about the Timekeepers, Percy, I doubt there’s anyone who could better guide you through the ruins. Especially since you would be as safe with her as you possibly could be. What do you say, Pheneraxa, are you willing to show our guest the sights?”
Percy turned, her pained expression suddenly coming alight with interest. “Oh, would you? It wouldn’t be a burden?”
“I…yes, well…” Pheneraxa cleared her throat, then tossed her head proudly. “Well, I was planning to do some reading today, but…I can do that anytime. I more or less do. And it is rather pleasant to share my knowledge with a person of sufficient intellect to appreciate it. Yes, I believe I could make time to show you around, Percy.”
Just so very much like her mother; the only thing she seemed to have inherited from Atraximos was the snide sense of humor.
“That sounds wonderful, thank you so much!” Percy said with enthusiasm. “Kaln, will you be joining us?”
“I’m going to regret missing out on Pheneraxa’s historical annotations, but in fact I need to go attend to some more family business today. I will check in on you soon, though. You girls have fun.”
“Okay, we will! So what do you know about the Timekeepers, Pheneraxa? It was my understanding that they were very mysterious.”
“Almost definitionally, yes,” the dragon agreed as the two of them carefully descended the steps to the next level. “Practically nothing is known about them save for what everyone already knows, which is…practically nothing. But I have personally investigated this city very thoroughly over the last century, including some of the sections that are now underwater, and some most intriguing inferences can be made from the structures here that I have not seen recorded by any other commenters writing on the subject.”
Kaln listened to their diminishing voices with a smile, even as he returned his focus to his dragon sense. Mostly no surprises; two of his wives were sleeping in their chambers, and Izayaroa was still painfully notable by her absence. Vadaralshi was again joy-swooping around the nearby peaks. He hoped she would have the sense not to dive-bomb Percy and her sister, and that Pheneraxa would contain the situation rather than exacerbate it if she did not.
Upon reflection, perhaps he had better keep half an eye on them.
What most interested Kaln at this moment was Vanimax, who was very uncharacteristically still, silent, and on the ground. The dragon stood upon the plateau to the south of the mountain ridge, close to where Kaln himself had first approached the complex, staring in the direction of distant Rhivaak.
He fixed his attention, focused his will, and the world blurred around him. Suddenly Kaln was standing upon the prairie seeing Vanimax with his eyes rather than just his dragon sense, with the vast flatlands stretching infinitely before them and the mountains rising behind.
Vanimax jerked violently, whipping his head around to stare at Kaln, and immediately his expression fell into a scowl.
“What the hells do you want?”
“Oh, man, that’s a bigger question than I think you realize,” Kaln said. “What do I want? Well… I guess most of it can be summed up as ‘peace.’ I want us all to have a secure home and not be bothered by the succession of threats and annoyances that we definitely are about to be. I want to get to know everybody better, all six of you—as individuals, and as a family. I want this to be a family, not just the loose and tense alliance of overlapping mutual interests I found here. What I really want is for us all to get along, to trust and care about each other, for each of us to know without having to doubt or think about it that there are six others who’ll unquestioningly have our back through whatever the hells happens to us all next.”
Slowly, Vanimax reared up to his full height, until he was staring down the length of his pointed nose at Kaln from a good two stories up.
“That…might be the single most absurd thing I have ever heard anyone suggest.”
“I know, right?” Kaln grinned up at him. “It sounds pretty crazy when I say it out loud—that’s probably why I’ve been reluctant to. But hey, since I’m apparently on course to become the god of dragons, maybe it’s appropriate for me to have ridiculously lofty dragon-related ambitions. It’s not like dragons ever do anything halfway. Yeah, I get your point. It might be simpler if I followed Tiavathyris’s suggestion of using the Phantom Legion to conquer the Evervales by force.”
Vanimax snorted and ruffled his wings momentarily before folding them back down. “I interpreted her comment as suggesting you should refrain from doing that.”
“Well, that’s good, since I am not planning to. See? Making progress already.”
The dragon sneered and turned away, once again staring at the horizon.
“My old mentor gave me a piece of advice that I keep coming back to,” Kaln continued. “When faced with a task that is overwhelming in scope, you must break it down into smaller pieces. And if necessary, break down those pieces into smaller tasks still, as many times as it takes to reduce the whole to a set of achievable goals. And then take them on one at a time.”
“So coming here to pester me is a small step toward your ludicrous fantasy of forging some…grandiose dragon hugbox?”
Kaln shrugged, smiling. “Well, look at us: having an awkward conversation when we don’t really want to. That’s exactly what families do. Part of it, anyway.”
“I thought you were an orphan.”
“Family are the people you find yourself stuck with. Birth is only one of the ways for that to happen. Not even the most interesting.”
Slowly, Vanimax lowered his head. Still staring into the distance, he seemed not quite conscious of the action; it gave him a hangdog look, with his nose toward the ground and neck arched in an almost hunched posture.
“Mother has told me the same thing, often enough. Breaking up a big task…”
“She’s probably where my own mentor heard it from. Her writings are basically gospel to those of us who serve Rhivaak.”
“I never had anything huge I particularly wanted to accomplish… Well, except kill Atraximos, but that was an immense enough challenge that even the smallest goals I could break it down into were going to take me centuries each. Seems pointless now, of course. Even so, I listened. I remember everything she’s taught me.”
He ruffled his wings again, letting his head sink lower.
“I…haven’t exactly…been the best student of her teachings.”
Kaln nodded slowly, pacing forward until he stood even with Vanimax’s head, staring alongside him in the same direction.
“Between the two of us, we pissed her off good and proper, this time. Has she done this before? Disappeared like this?”
“Not like this,” Vanimax rumbled. “She goes off to Rhivkabat from time to time, discreetly. I’ve never seen her…storm off in a rage before. It really didn’t seem…like her.”
“Yeah. Well…crap.”
“Mm.”
They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring glumly at nothing and listening to the wind shiver the patchy grass around them.
“Why did you stick up for me?” Vanimax asked quietly.
“Because I was correct. And believe me, in hindsight I’m having doubts. I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to say something hurtful to someone you love.”
“I guess…I wouldn’t know.”
Kaln nodded. They were silent another handful of heartbeats; it was he who broke it this time.
“Well…what do we do now?”
Vanimax heaved an annoyed sigh, deliberately emitting a puff of smoke from his nostrils. Yep, Kaln was reminded that he was correct about the smell; more like hot metal than wood or oil smoke.
“It’s not like there’s anything we can do, until she decides to come home. I don’t know whether she’ll have calmed down or gotten angrier by then. Either way, we are in for it. Me more than you, I bet.”
“You’re probably right. What about in the meantime, then? Just sitting around waiting always seems like a waste of time to me, no matter what it is you’re waiting for.”
Surprisingly, Vanimax grinned, twisting his neck to look down at him again. “Yeah? Well, I know how Vadaralshi and I deal with tension like this. It’s a good way to clear the air. You really wouldn’t be interested, though.”
“Oh?” Kaln turned to face him head on, folding his arms and raising an eyebrow. “Try me.”