A trader's arrival was always a time of frantic excitement in an out of the way keep, and this was no exception. Dragonettes hurried back and forth with bundles and packages. Reed held court like some high noble, bartering for the bounty that they had brought.

But not everyone was involved in the trade negotiations. A pair of younger dragonettes had staked out a corner of the greeting hall and were deep in conversation.

"And so now I have no chance with your cousin! None! Not stuck all the way out in the capital."

"Come on Aytin, you never had a chance with Nyssa, and you know it. Maybe if you visited more than once every few years, but noooo. A day on dragonback is too much for you."

"I had more of a chance than you had with Zara. You were following her around like she was giving out honey last time you visited our keep."

"Hey, that was two years ago. Back when I was small and scrawny like you." Korbin flexed an arm and Aytin had to admit there was some respectable muscle there. Between that and the late growth spurt that put him on the tall side for a male, he could definitely turn some heads.

The pair didn't get to see each other often. Their keeps might be on neighboring islands, but that was still far enough to prevent casual visits. Despite that, once Faelon landed they hadn't wasted any time in getting reacquainted.

"And you have to admit that your sister is pretty amazing." Korbin continued, grinning at his friend's expression.

Aytin wasn't going to take the jab lying down. "You know what Zara said when you left?"

"I bet she couldn't stop talking about how great I was," he replied, a shit eating grin plastered across his face.

"She said you were cute, and she wished she could have a little brother like you."

"What?! And you didn't say anything?"

"Of course I did. I told her how much you loved your needlework and how you wanted to know what her favorite flower was so you could embroider it on a handkerchief for her."

"One time. One fucking time I sew up your shirt for you, and that's all you ever seem to remember. Not the time I caught two ducks on the wing. Or the time I flew through that canyon at full speed without a scratch. Or nailed that target with a spear from thirty paces. But you always go back to the sewing thing!"

"Well," Aytin said, "I might have also mentioned how much you love cooking. I remember when you tried to show me how to make oat cakes."

"Some friend you are," Korbin muttered in mock outrage. "I should have my parents kick you out of our keep."

"Nah, I'm part of the crew now. Reed would stop you."

"I'd stop Korbin from doing what, exactly?"

Both young dragonettes turned to see the trader in question looking on, ears flicked up in curiosity and a small smile on her face. The trade negotiations appeared to be over, and the crowd around Faelon's cargo was thinning.

"That you wouldn't let throw out a member of your crew just for pointing out that he's useless with girls," Aytin said, quick to get his side of the story out first.

Reed's smile grew. "Most certainly not. Us traders have to stick together. But... sometimes accommodations can be made for a particularly lucrative customer. And the Alraks certainly qualify."

"I'd accept him sleeping in the stables with the oxen, but nothing less," Korbin declared, with magnanimity.

"I'm not sleeping with the livestock. Someone of my high noble birth has standards." His imperious declaration was spoiled by his friend's mocking laugh.

Reed smiled, but shook her head at their antics. "I actually had something else in mind. How would you like to earn a few silver, Tin?"

"You have a job? For me?"

"A bit of a day trip. I think I can talk young master Korbin here down from his blood feud if you're out from underfoot for a few hours." She added the last with an ironic flick of the ears, before turning to business. "Anyway, you know about the Alraks' new mine, right?"

Aytin nodded. "They found silver ore veins in the edge of the island, right?"

"And lead and quicksilver, too," Korbin interjected.

"Yes. And it's potentially very productive. So much so that Lady Alrak has hired us to carry a proposal to the mining guild. They want them to send representatives to evaluate it for investment."

Aytin hadn't heard about that. It could be a big deal. The Alrak Keep was reasonably sized for this part of the frontier with a little over thirty residents. It was nothing as big as the Luffins' but some investment and a generation of growth could change that.

"That's great for them, but what does it have to do with me?"

"Well, I'm sending Faelon out with Bush and a few guards to carry a load of mining tools out to the camp. I'd like you to accompany them. I've done this sort of job for guilds before, and they appreciate someone with first hand knowledge to answer questions. I figured that since your family owns a copper mine, you would be perfect for the job."

Aytin hesitated. "It's not exactly the same thing..." He didn't want to go into how his family's mine was different from the traditional shafts drilled into the sides of islands.

"I understand. But you are still the closest thing to an expert I have. So what do you say to ten silver for the trip, and another five if you end up answering any questions for the guild?"

The young dragonette didn't even pause to consider. "Fifteen and seven."

"Ha! Twelve and seven," Reed countered with a grin. "Final offer."

"Deal."

Soon enough, Aytin found himself on Faelon's back along with an abbreviated crew. With only a pair of crates to weigh him down, the dragon was making excellent time. They would reach the mining camp and return well before dark.

The island fell away into clouded mists off to their right. No one in the party had ever visited the newly constructed mining camp, so they were following the edge of the island to their destination.

"We're almost there!" Bush shouted over the airstream.

Faelon's snort sent everyone scrambling for hand holds.

"That's the third time you've said that!" Voxin yelled back. She was a tall, solidly built dragonette and the leader of both the trio of guards on this jaunt and the guard contingent as a whole.

"That jutting cliff with the three dark bands on it. Lady Alrak told me to look for it."

Aytin squinted ahead, picking out the landmark in question. "I count four stripes."

"No, that's just a shadow." Bush sounded utterly confident. "There are only three."

"There are four." Faelon's interjection took the wind out from under Bush's wings. It took magic or a spyglass to match a dragon's eyesight.

Sure enough, beyond the point there was only more scrub brush and tall grass waving in the wind.

After that, Bush retreated towards the rear of the dragon. He had a small bag secured there and he busied himself going through its contents.

Voxin caught Aytin's eye and gave him a look, before jerking her head towards the young crew member.

Despite the hazing attempt, Bush wasn't a bad guy. He'd even told Aytin that he looked forward to seeing how the younger dragonette got back at him.

But Bush didn't quite fit into a normal role among the crew. He filled a lot of the roles of an able hand aboard Faelon, but it was clear he was more of Reed's apprentice than anything else. Maybe more than that if their similar features were anything to go on, but neither had volunteered anything on that front.

He was also a lot closer to Aytin's age than anyone else on the crew. Only a few years older in fact, although he had apparently spent most of those in the capital.

Aytin caught the suggestion in Voxin's pointed glance. With a shrug, he ventured over to sit down next to the apprentice trader.

"What are those?" he asked, indicating the stoppered vials and tools in a leather bundle.

Bush turned and blinked, not having noticed the other dragonette's approach over the sound of the airstream.

"It's a test for metal purity," he replied after a moment. "We're getting paid in some of the mine's product and we can't let them try to pass off a cheap alloy as the real thing."

Aytin was vaguely familiar with the process. His family did something similar to the copper their mines produced. So did the traders who came to pick up the ingots.

There were some dragonettes who could tell exactly what a thing was made out of with nothing but a touch, but that was an incredibly rare form of magic. Most relied on alchemical processes to test their metals.

Nonetheless, it didn't stop him from asking for details.

"You scrape a little bit of metal on this stone," Bush explained, indicating a flat, black stone. "Then add a few drops of these alchemical solutions to it. If there's anything left, it means whatever you're testing for is there."

The young crew member began to get more animated as he pulled out a vial marked with odd symbols. "Whatever color is left over also helps you figure out how pure it is. Between that and some tricks with a scale and a cup of water, you can at least keep from getting scammed."

"Does that happen often?" Aytin asked.

Bush shrugged. "According to my- according to Reed, it happens more often than you'd think. But usually not on purpose. Most of the time someone gets conned into buying a fake while visiting the city. Then times get tough and they try to sell it. But keeps are usually smart enough not to try and scam the people you depend on for supplies. I bet you already knew that though, huh?"

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"It's usually a bad idea, yeah," Aytin agreed. "So it sounds like you're mostly trying to see how they're doing here? Reed told me that you're carrying back a message to the mining guild, so this is more information for them?"

"Yup," Bush said, giving a small smile. "And she told me that's what you're here to do, too."

Aytin nodded. "For whatever it's worth. I'm not an expert and the mines here are a lot different than the one my family owns."

"How's that? I thought one mine was the same as another." The apprentice sounded genuinely interested, and Aytin had to think for a second to come up with an explanation.

"Is a trade group on contract to ferry construction supplies to some frontier fort the same as one like yours who flies from island to island trading supplies?"

"I guess not," Bush admitted.

"It's the same thing with mines. Most of them, you just cut into the side of an island because that's where the ore is. But my family got lucky a few generations back when we were quarrying stone to expand the keep. They hit a huge vein of really pure copper in the hill.

"But I never really did that much work down there. I just know what I picked up during dinner conversation and stuff. Plus it's copper and this is silver, which has got to be different to refine. So I have no idea if I'm going to be any good here."

Bush flicked his ears and gave a wry smile. "There's plenty of that going around."

Before either could go on, Voxin called back. "I think I see the camp!"

The pair scrambled to look, and sure enough, a collection of tents and a few rough structures were coming into view. Further below, Aytin could just make out a cluster of openings in the cliffside. He had no doubt they were the entrances to mine itself.

When Faelon landed, they were met by a half dozen dragonettes led by a female nearly as short as Aytin. But she had a barrel chest and arms like tree trunks. Her voice boomed as she introduced herself as Lunaire, the foreman of the operation.

"We're damn happy to finally see y'all out here," she said as the rest of her crew started tearing into the crates of tools with enthusiasm. "We were down to our last drill and most of what we've got wasn't meant for mining. While Grendon's a fine smith, there's only so much he can do, and only so much steel for him to do it with."

"Well, it was tough, but we managed to get everything on your list," Bush said. He sounded just like Reed did at the end of a successful sale.

"Boy, this isn't half of what we need. Not even a tenth! What I need right now are another twenty bodies, a pile of gear, and a dragon or two. Speaking of, it's Faelon, right?" the mine foreman asked, turning to address the so far disinterested dragon.

Faelon shifted his long neck to regard the much smaller dragonette. It was a rather intimidating display, but Lunaire didn't so much as flick an ear.

"How would you like to earn a nice chunk of silver for less than an hour's work?" she asked with a smile to rival Reed's best bargaining grin.

Faelon considered her words before replying, "I'm listening."

"Well..." Lunaire drawled, clearly enjoying herself. "You see, we do a lot of our mining with fire-setting. You know, build a fire, let it go until the rock's good and hot, then quench it fast."

She paused to make sure the dragon was following. When he remained silent, she pushed on with a shrug. "But the only fuel we have is a small vein of coal, and that's a good fifteen minute flight away. You need a lot to get the rock hot enough to crack, too. So we were thinking that since the main shaft should be just big enough for you to-"

"No."

Lunaire's face fell at the single word reply. She recovered quickly though. "Come on, I can promise you-"

"I said no," the dragon cut her off once again. His tone was so sharp that everyone in earshot took an involuntary step back.

"But, I mean, we could really use..." Lunaire's flustered pleas tapered off when Faelon fixed her with a stare that could have drilled straight through the island.

The only sound was the stiff breeze. Even the miners had stopped their unpacking to stare. Absolutely no one wanted to piss off a red dragon and Faelon seemed uninterested in elaborating.

"Could- could you use flash powder?"

Everyone turned to Aytin.

For his part, the young dragonette wasn't a stranger to attention. He was the son of a noble, after all. But he nearly shrank back from the collective gazes of traders, minders, and an annoyed red dragon.

Still, he managed to keep himself together and continued. "Back at home, in Luffin Keep, we do the same sort of mining. And there aren't many trees there, either. So we buy a lot of flash powder, and mix it with oil to heat tunnel walls. It sticks and burns and does a lot better job than a normal fire. I know we bought the makings of some from Faelon before he left, so..."

Aytin trailed off, but Lunaire was nodding vigorously. "We could make that work. If you're, uh, willing to sell us the main ingredient." She directed that last towards Faelon.

Not only could red dragons breathe fire, they could produce a viscous liquid that dried into an extremely flammable powder. It wasn't anywhere near as volatile as a blue dragon's blitz gel, but many crews were still wary of transporting large quantities of the stuff.

Faelon, though, could make his own.

"Do you know how to handle it?" the red dragon asked.

One of the miners nodded. "I've used flash powder before. Even made it myself. We'll be careful."

Lunaire sent someone off to fetch several small casks while she haggled over the cost. She quickly regained her cheerful demeanor, and they settled on a bar of bullion worth about twenty-five silver. In exchange, they would get as much spit as Faelon could provide and a few pointers on processing it. That turned out to be about a cask worth, split between six containers.

The miners would have to carefully dry it in order to produce the flash powder, but by the looks of it they would have enough to last quite a while. Even longer if the new tools made as much a difference as they seemed to hope. It wouldn't be quite as good as having a full grown dragon in the mines, but it was the next best thing.

Aytin and Bush both accepted invitations to tour the facilities, accompanied by Voxin. She had the other two guards remain with Faelon while Lunaire showed them around their smelting setup and blacksmith's forge.

To Aytin's eye, most of the smelting equipment looked repurposed or cobbled together from whatever was available. It certainly couldn't hold a candle to the setup at the Luffin mines.

But for all its rough appearance, it was definitely functional. He said as much, although he was careful to phrase it in much more diplomatic terms.

"Yep," the foreman agreed. "It ain't fancy. We're really just scrambling to put something together and prove we can." She looked pointedly at Bush.

The apprentice trader had only just returned from testing the silver that made up the bulk of their payment. He had managed to keep any expression off of his face when questioned, but he had been just a little too quick when he had pronounced the purity as "Acceptable."

They continued the tour, taking a quick flight to a landing platform built into the cliff face. The tunnel it led to was wide, but when Lunaire had said it was big enough for Faelon, she was stretching the truth. It would have been uncomfortably cramped at the very least.

The shaft was dim, even with the oil lanterns each of them carried. It seemed stable, though, and there were wooden braces spaced regularly throughout the tunnel.

There were also narrow openings to one side every dozen paces or so. When Aytin squeezed through one to take a look beyond, he found a narrow, parallel shaft.

Lunaire was happy to explain its purpose when he asked. "You noticed the breeze up top, right? It's more or less constant, so we use it for ventilation. There's a windscreen in front of the other shaft, so the breeze blows down this one, through the cross vents, and out the other. Feel the draft?" Aytin nodded, along with Bush and Voxin. "Well, if we've got a fire going, we'll block all the vents but the one closest to the end. It helps stoke the fire and carries off the smoke."

"We use vertical shafts for ventilation back home," Aytin said. "But I guess you can't do that so far underground."

Their guide's shrug was almost invisible in the dark. "Eventually we might have to run more vents back to the edge. Especially if the vein curves and blocks the wind. But it works fine for now."

By that point they had reached the end of the shaft and turned around. The tour had been short, but it was a small mine.

"What's that?" Bush asked as they emerged into the sunlight once again.

"That's our ore lift," Lunaire replied. "Flying with buckets full of rock got old, fast."

"Huh," Bush said, eyeing the wooden platform full of rubble, and then letting his gaze follow the ropes up to the cliff top. "Does anyone ever ride it?"

"From time to time," their guide said with a small smile. "Why? Your wings tired?"

"As a matter of fact, they are."

"That's what happens when you spend all your time riding on dragonback and never bothering to fly yourself anywhere," Aytin quipped.

Bush shot him a glare but then grinned. "That's too much work. Come on, Tin, let's ride in style." He hopped up on the pile of ore and motioned for Aytin to join him.

The slight sway of the platform and the way it creaked slightly with every swing didn't exactly inspire confidence, but it wasn't like they were in any danger from falling. Aytin only hesitated for a moment before jumping on.

"Anyone else? Voxin?"

"Not a chance, Bush," the guard captain said, shaking her head. "Unlike you, I'm not afraid of a little exercise." With a running start, she unfurled her wings and took off into the sky.

"Coward!" Bush called after her. She only made a rude gesture in response as she circled nearby.

Lunaire took a moment to untie a pair of ropes securing the lift to the landing platform. The swaying immediately intensified.

"Alright, boys, stay put down here and I'll go release the brakes. Probably ought to sit yourselves down, too, since the ride can get pretty bumpy."

Aytin was about to take her advice, but Bush only grabbed one of the ropes. Lunaire only shrugged as Aytin braced himself against the rocking.

The pair shared the open mouthed grins of the young and invincible as she leapt into the sky.

A thought occurred to Aytin and he released the rope, deliberately crossing both hands across his chest.

Bush's smile faltered slightly. But not to be outdone, he assumed a similar nonchalant posture.

Before either one of them could do any more posturing the lift jolted upwards. The sudden acceleration sent them both stumbling.

Aytin instinctively reached for the rope but checked himself at the last moment. Bush had actually grabbed it before realizing his mistake and snatching his hand back like he'd just touched a sizzling pan.

They rose at a fair clip. Above them another wooden platform descended. This one was packed with tailings from the refining process to act as a counterweight.

Perhaps a little too packed. The other lift passed in a blur. They might not be going as fast as a dragonette in level flight, but they were ascending faster than most could match on a long climb.

Then whoever was up top applied the brakes and they both went weightless.

As the lift seemed to bounce, the load of ore shifted under their feet. Aytin stumbled, only barely managing to keep his balance. But it proved too much for Bush.

The cocky young apprentice trader fell backwards, arms windmilling and wings extended for balance. It wasn't enough and Bush disappeared over the edge.

Aytin scrambled to catch a glimpse of his fallen companion

He needn't have bothered. The stream of curses was audible well before he caught sight of the other dragonette.

"I told ya to sit your asses down, didn't I?" Lunaire shouted down from the cliffside.

The target of Bush's curses shifted from the elevator to a certain mine foreman and everyone in earshot shared a laugh.

A hint of a smirk was visible on Aytin's face as Bush landed. He never said a word, but Bush rolled his eyes at him. "It was bad luck, pure and simple."

"Yep," Aytin agreed. His self-satisfied smile didn't waiver.

After a long glare, Bush's expression shifted into a grin. "What the hells? It was still worth it."

The two shared a laugh. Then they immediately started talking about doing it again.

Time was short, though. They needed to get back to the Alrak Keep for dinner and the miners had to finish the day's work.

So with the sun still high in the sky, they bid their farewells and Faelon lifted off.

"What did you think," Bush asked once they were airborne.

Aytin gave it some thought, going over the mental notes he had made during their tour. "I think they have a good thing going."

"Is that your professional opinion?" The apprentice trader had a wry grin on his face when he asked.

"Yeah, actually," Aytin said, and he was surprised that he meant it. "I think I picked up more from the family business than I thought."

"Well, they certainly paid well. The silver they gave us," he waved towards the heavy lockbox, "was at least a few percent more pure than we agreed. That's pure profit right there. Although they may just be buttering us up to make sure we put in a good word for them with the guild."

"So that's your professional opinion?"

Bush laughed at having his own words turned on him. "You know what, I think it is."