11.3
On the road to Kaeketeh Jewel spoke to her Knight.
And she would make him a proper knight this summer harvest festival. She’d announce it with all the ceremony.
Smithson had served her far and beyond any squire. He had stood in judgment by her laws for the common people. He had comforted and reinforced her. He was plenty old enough to assume the title.
She would probably have to pay him in silver though. Even the thought of sending him away to manage his own manor made both her hearts ache in worry.
It was not unheard of.
A Knight for her household as countess. A member of her court. In fact she should probably make Muriel a Knight as well.
So much to do.
“You Knew, you listened and you knew? You understood we were one?”
Smithson shook his head.
“I didn't but I don’t think you have the right of it either, lady. Little Gem might be like you, might know what you know. But I’ve seen how she runs, how she plays, how she sings and worries and frets. She is her own girl.”
Jewel bristled, as her larger and smaller self together.
But before she could retort Smithson gently rubbed her smaller shoulder.
“But that does not mean you are not blended together either. I’d be a fool to deny my own eyes there. When one of you laughs the other is smiling long before. But when you are apart? Gem is different.”
Jewel huffed and tried to explain something she herself could barely grasp beyond the absolute assurance of.
“When I am apart from myself I’m free. Free and yet chained by my own whims. My smaller heart is overflowing with every fancy and thought or feeling. Every moment is sharp and clear and wells up entirely.”
Smithson nodded to that, gently massaging her smaller self’s back. Easing tension that she had not even realized was bunching up there around the shoulders. The soothing bled through to her own coils and loosened her wings from where they had been tightening up close.
“When I’m together we are the same but the Lady of Rochford and Countess must behave properly. But there is more of me, I’m complete, I’m not as full... At least I was.”
Her Knight nodded and offered a weak smile to her.
“Until Gem’s tantrum raised the Shining Wyrm of Viznove to a fury?”
Jewel huffed hard enough to blow the leaves in the branches arching overhead.
Well... over Smithson and their party’s head. Jewel could have raised her neck to scrape her horns in the leaves.
She chose not too.
“I apologized to my father, mother and Gwenn.”
Jewel frowned remembering the rest of that evening and the following morning.
“But she still startles when I’m there.”
Smithson continued to gently rub her back where she straddled the saddle ahead of him on Oxhoof.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“if I’m not... smaller.”
The tears were welling up in both her eyes, but for once the pain was rising more from her wyrmish heart then her spawn’s.
Smithson was smooth with his right hand, slipping into a pouch at his side. She was not surprised by the treat of jerky brushing her spawn’s lips but still she was startled and then hiccuped and snatched up the dried meat to chew.
The absolute absurdity of how warmly that salted pork soothed her tears and pain soon brought a giggle and then Jewel and her spawn were laughing. Only ending in a doubled squawk of surprise when her Knight ruffled Gem’s hair roughly. The feeling sending a shock up and down both her spines!
“There ya go. A quick snack is good for the spirit when you're down.”
Jewel rumbled in annoyance at how well his antics worked on her.
“I’m not some child Smithson.”
His fingers suddenly caught Gem at her sides and this time she was surprised. The laughter burst from both her snouts as he tickled her!
“None of that Lady Jewel! You are a Child!”
Jewel gave a huff that blew in the breeze of the late summer leaves.
“I am a countess! This will be my eighteenth winter!”
Smithson flicked one of Gem’s ears and she flinched. Sudden tears welling up in both her eyes.
“Hey!”
He met her wyrm eyes with a far more intense glare than she had expected.
“How do you expect people to believe when you claim you are one and the same with Gem if you keep denying what that means my Lady? No wonder your family was so confused about it.”
Jewel blinked at him while she rubbed at her smaller self’s ear. It really stung her spawn’s ears like that. Her ears were sensitive!
“What do you mean I’m denying it?!”
Smithson turned back to look down at Gem, Jewel lifted her still tear brimmed eyes to glare up at him and stick out her tongue and hiss.
His voice was soft as he brushed the tears from her eyes with a small bit of cloth. Not Wyrmspun, but simply felted regular wool. Soaking up the tears as he wiped her smaller self. The simple touch and care already stemming the tears.
Jewel’s larger eyes had to simply squeeze and shake them loose.
“My Lady Jewel you are indeed Countess and coming upon your Eighteenth winter.”
She snorted from both snouts.
He gently now tapped her on the tip of her shorter snout.
“But you are also only just coming into your fourth one little Gem. And only a fool could be blind to how obvious that is.”
He fetched another snack for her smaller self and again Jewel was befuddled and annoyed how well that soothed her ire. The feeling of it welling up in both of her. Soothing the agitation and reminding Gem of the weight of exhaustion creeping in.
She probably was going to doze off and leave Jewel partly addled for it.
Smithson through long practice and familiarity with his charge shifted his arms and where they gripped Oxhoof’s reigns.
Embracing and supporting Jewel’s smaller self so that when she inevitably dozed off she would not risk falling out of the saddle. The familiar comfort of his arms close in at either side and his hands in front of her adding to the annoying sleepiness that was suddenly settling.
Her Knight spoke up then.But softly, so as not to keep her smaller self awake. His words were almost like a lullaby.
“You are my countess, Liege, Lady and the Shining Wyrm of Viznove Jewel. You are a Married woman and eighteen winters old. But you need to remember something else.”
Jewel felt her smaller eyes closing.
It had been too many feelings, too much travel, too much new and distressing for her small heart. As one part of her drifted off to sleep the other was left to hear his words clearly and consider their meaning.
“You are in fact also a child.”
Jewel sighed heavily.
“My good Nurse Knight of Viznove. You are right.”
Being a dragon was so unfair.
Human women in their eighteenth year did not have to admit that they were also simultaneously still children!