The New Planet (closed)

[dutchrain]

Kylikki looked at him, at her hand, and wrapped her fingers around two of his outstretched hand.

"Dont pull!" She warned him before she closed her fingers around his fingers.

Slowly she changed her posture, put more weight on her feet and less on the hand still on a step, and climbed the remaining steps, kicking her feet in the snow and ice carefully as she rose.

"Hi," she said when both feet were on the ledge. She looked down, and with a weary mind she thought of the way back again, later in the day.

"I won't stay long today, I am sorry," she said as she sat down just inside the tunnel and took her over-gloves off. She slapped them against the wall and put them in a pouch inside her cloak, when they were free from snow and ice particles.

"Would it be alright if I hang them on one of the empty torch rings to dry?" She asked while bending over to open the straps on her feet. The leather was well oiled, but her fingers a bit stiff. It took her longer to undo them, than it had taken her to bind them. After she had stacked the climbing spikes away, she rose to her feet.

"I have bread, honey and butter. And my mother made you a nice plate with some dried cow meat and roasted chicken to say thank you for the mackerels you brought last time. I need to eat and drink some milk before we start lessons though."

 

[JadeKnight]

He chuckle-growled for a moment.

"Don't worry about how long you can stay. I always enjoy your company, no matter how long or short it is."

He probably should have been embarrassed at telling her that, but that was just how he felt. He pointed to a nearby empty holder as she worked on getting her gloves off.

"Go right ahead. And there's no need to ask to do something like that. Think of this as a second home. I have nothing to hide or deny you."

He nodded for a moment as she told him of needing to eat. He took his usual seat in front of the puller nearest the opening to wait on her.

"Of course, go ahead and eat. And I'm sure you've been wondering about me, so feel free to ask what you would like."

 

[dutchrain]

Kylikki nodded at Draco's words as she followed him into the big chamber deep down. She didn't talk, she was too tired and cold. He enjoyed her company. She had started to enjoy his too. He was less dragon to her now, and more man.

Walking through the veils and feeling the warmth of the fire inside, she sighed pleased.

"Go ahead and eat. And I'm sure you've been wondering about me, so feel free to ask what you would like." He said after he sat down at his usual place. Kylikki hung her cloak over one ring, her spikes over another and her gloves and over-gloves on yet another.

Her packpack landed on the floor beside the cushion she usually sat on and her vest too. Cross legged she sat opposite Draco and started to unpack.

"The plate. Made by my father and my mother." She opened the band, folded the skin away and offered it Draco. The next item she took out was the book. "This is a book. My aunt Irma copied it, it took her almost three months to complete it." The next thing she took out and put on the floor between them, was a thin plate of slate and a chalky stone. "To write on," was her short explanation.

Finally she reached the bread, the butter, the honey and the fish and the meat.

"The butter will be too hard now, but if it hasn't softened in a few minutes I'll put it in the fire for a breathe or two." She told Draco what the food on the pieces of leather between them where, broke off a piece of bread and fish and took a tasty bite after she drank some milk.

"Where were you born?" she asked before she filled her mouth again.

 

[JadeKnight]

He was quiet as he watched her unpack her backpack, nodding with each item she pointed out to him. He figured that writing, much like the symbols he had found before, were more of the communication he needed to learn. However he doubted it would take him long to pick up the written tongue.

He picked up the offered plate, picking each item up to sniff at it. The scents were pleasent and interesting to him. He took a bite from each item, chewing carefully before swallowing. The tastes were unique and very good to him. At her question, he sat the plate down on his lap.

"That is a interesting question, and I will answer to the best I can. I was born from an egg in a nest, among ten other dragons. The...world, I believe is the word to call it, was much...well I'm not certain of how it would compare to where I am now. It was filled with creatures of all kinds, air, land, and sea, but nothing like your people. The only two legged animals were the birds."

He was quiet as he thought for a moment before speaking again.

"As far as I know, I am two thousand turns of the sun of my world. The last thing I remember before waking up here was going to sleep in a cave just a little bigger then myself. A tragedy struck the females making most of them unable to lay eggs. The weather cycle was changing as well, and we thought a long sleep would correct the problem. I don't know how long I was sleep, or how I came here, but here I am."

 

[dutchrain]

Slowly munching Kylikki listened to Draco. Her eyebrows rose when he told her he hatched from an egg. That must have been an enormous egg, or he had been extremely tiny when he came out off it.

She nodded when he called his world world. It was the right word. She wondered how many worlds there were and where they were. Stars were the souls of the warriors and mothers from the old times, guiding the younger ones. He had ten siblings! So there were more dragons. She furrowed her brow. That was not good news. If dragons had such big families, there must have been an awful lot of dragons.

Another bite of fish and bread found its way in her mouth. She looked at Draco when he paused. She nearly sprayed him with breadcrumbs and fish when he started to talk again. Two-thousand turns of the sun! Two-thousand years! He was nearly a hundred times older than she was! She just in time clasped her hand over her mouth.

She left it there, she was unable to chew hearing the rest of his story. Almost no fertile females! They must have felt awful when they realized they suddenly couldn't lay eggs anymore. And then the weather changing too. A long sleep? Did he mean thy decided to hibernate like the ice bears did? Or had they put themselves in an enchanted sleep? Could all dragons do magic?

The questions tumbled through her brain. She had to make a conscious effort to chew and swallow, a while after Draco stopped talking.

When her mouth was finally empty, she found her tongue sticking to the roof of her tongue. She grabbed for the drinking horn and gulped some milk down.

"I am very sorry. I am truly very, very sorry," she said hoarsely, both her hands clenched around the horn. "So my world is not the world you were born on?" She needed to know this. She needed to know if there were more dragons here, still asleep. Even if only one fertile female was still asleep, that would mean ten more dragons in a few years. Or moons.

 

[JadeKnight]

He frowned for a moment as he thought about her question and then shook his head.

"No, I do not believe so. Nothing about this world seems the same. I know practically every part of my world, and this island is not familiar at all. I even tried to call for the others to gather to me after I emerged from the water that night after I woke. We dragons have excellent hearing and even the call from a another can be heard for miles."

He lifted his plate and nibbled a few more bites before setting the empty plate aside.

"I wonder if the cold killed them while they slept or I truly traveled through the sky from my world to yours. If things go well for me, I will live for another thousand turns or more of your sun, once I know how many intervals to takes to change your seasons."

He pushed the thought aside and smiled to her.

"Is there anything else you would like to know?"

 

[dutchrain]

"I wonder if the cold killed them while they slept or I truly traveled through the sky from my world to yours. If things go well for me, I will live for another thousand turns or more of your sun, once I know how many intervals to takes to change your seasons."

"There were many falling stars just before the wave hit us. Some fell on islands, maybe even on the mainland, some burned to ashes in the air," Kylikki said, studying the empty plate. She thought she understood now why he wanted to learn to speak. It would be a very lonely thousand years if he was the only dragon on the world. He needed to understand how people thought, and how and why they acted how they did otherwise some soon would have enough of him and decide to kill him. And if enough people came together, even Draco's magic wouldn't help him survive. But still, there was a possibility there was a fertile female dragon still asleep on the world.

"How often in their life a female dragon laid eggs? And how many eggs in average and how many little ones survived their first year?" Kylikki was curious.

 

[JadeKnight]

He was quiet as he thought for a few moments as he thought about her statement and questions. He felt the pang of loneliness when she mentioned the possibility of a female dragon surviving. Well, his odds of mating would be increased, but she could have been ravaged by the sickness as well.

"A female dragon may have survived, but there's a high chance of her not being able to clutch."

He shook his head for a moment before continuing.

"The females usually went into heat every hundred turns. The males would fight over the females, the winner often getting the right to clutch with multiple females he was fighting over. Each female could lay up to fourth eggs in a large cavern like this. Once the eggs were laid, the male would fertilize the eggs, like birds do."

He paused for a moment to lean back on his hands, looking at her closely to see if she understood. He gave a little smile at seeing how closely she was listening to him.

"The females guarded and protected the nests, taking turns to hunt for food. We had an understanding with the lesser creatures and they stayed away from us during the hatching season. The young ones often leave the nest after five to seven intervals of the sun."

He shifted and leaned forward.

"How does your people mating ritual happen?"

 

[dutchrain]

Kylikki didn't know what she should react to first. So many new ideas flooded her head, so many things she wanted to ask, such a complex thing Draco wanted to know about.

"Birds here don't fertilize the eggs after they are laid. It could be one or two species do it, I don't know, but by most you only see a hen on the nest. She stays there, keeps the eggs warm, and the male brings her food, or not. Chickens lay eggs all the time, but only when the cock has mated with a hen the eggs are live. The cock never ever even looks at the eggs. Live eggs only get laid during a short period in the spring. You never see little chickens in the winter, and you never see birds mating except very early in the spring." She shrugged her shoulders. "With hunting species of birds both parents hunt for the young."

She plucked at the bread, made little balls of the soft inside. She looked up at Draco, looked back at her hands.

"With us, with people, it is a bit different. Women can get with child in the summer, in the winter, the spring or the autumn. Not every mating amongst people results in a child. Actually most don't. A women only knows she isn't with child when her moon time sets in. If her moon time stays out, she might be with child. Or ill, or malnourished, or too old. We don't lay eggs. When a child is born, after around forty weeks, it is absolutely helpless for many, many moons. It drinks its mother's milk for many moons until it grows teeth and is able to eat some soft, boiled meat and vegetables. It then also can drink cow's milk.

But it still can't feed itself, it can't take care of itself. Until it is ten, eleven. At that age it knows what vegetables are good food, what berries are, what meat is. Then it can set traps for rabbits, fish with a rod or net from the shore, it can tend the crops, seed. It would be very hard, and many wouldn't survive it if they were all alone, but some might. Normally children start to help their parents or family with little tasks when they are four, or five. But I don't think such a small child would be able to survive on its own. Their parents and the rest of the family take care of their children."

She looked away from Draco again. He still was leaning towards her and it made her a bit uncomfortable.

"Mating, in principle it is the same amongst people as amongst cows and sheep and other animals which are not fish and birds. A male inserts his penis in a women's vagina and squirts his seed into her." She looked at him again. "Inside the women then a child might be conceived. The rituals around it, well it depends if they want to marry, or not, if they love each other or not, if they like each other or not, if they hope to have children together or not."

She knew she had a slight blush on her cheeks. She wasn't used to talk about mating with a male. It was women's talk, or children's talk. Or husband's and wife's talk. Or lovers' talk. Or men's talk. Ignoring her blush she drank some milk, and put some of the little bread balls she had made in her mouth.

 

[JadeKnight]

He was silent as he listened to explain about the process of mating that she knew about and of her own people. He had seen the animals during their mating seasons on his planet, and what she described matched what he had seen countless times before. However when she started talking about the rituals, it served to confuse him a bit.

He was silent for a few more moments after she stopped talking, standing up on his feet. He frowned for a moment as he paced a little, trying to sort everything in what she said. He stopped for a moment and looked down at her.

"Why would your people mate besides trying to reproduce or create more offspring? Is that not the whole idea behind the process, survival of your kind?"

He turned from her for a moment before looking back at her.

"And what about the selection of mates? Do the males not fight for the female, and how many mates does the male take? For how long?"

He could already tell that things were a bit more complicated than where he had come from. Survival was going to be more tricky than he thought.

 

[dutchrain]

Kylikki grinned a moment.

"Well, sometimes some men do fight over a woman, and sometimes some women do fight over a man, but if the winner gets the prize is a different matter altogether!" She giggled and grew sober again.

"A man takes one female, and a female takes one man. Normally. Until one of them dies. Or until one of them disappears. Or until one of them wants another." The words had flowed out off her mouth, now she paused a moment. "Sometimes one of them, wants another and takes another without telling his or hers mate. And then they might fight. Or maybe the mate of the other one starts a fight. It is complicated. Sometimes they both want it and add a third person to the marriage. Or sometimes twins want to stay together and marry the same man or woman. Sometimes a female can't conceive a child with her mate, and she (or they) might choose another man to father the child but she will care for it with her mate. And maybe she can't conceive even then, not even after she tried a few other men and then they might adopt a child and care for it as if it were their own."

She got to her feet too and wandered to the rings her cloak and things hung to dry. She turned them around, shook them.

"Mating is pleasure. It is one of the most intimate things a woman and a man can do." She shook her cloak again. "Or a man and a man or a woman and woman," she added then.

 

[JadeKnight]

He nodded as he listened, but it was still a lot to take in. Her people were so much more complicated than he thought, even their mating rituals and reasons were complicated. He shook his head for a moment before sitting back down.

"You have given me a lot of strange knowledge to take in, but I shall get it soon. Perhaps we get to something a little more simpler to understand. I believe you were going to teach me your written tongue now?"

 

[dutchrain]

Kylikki did not agree with him at all; writing and reading was not as easy learned as habits and rituals. To learn the last two, you just watched what other people did but to learn the first two you had to sit down and concentrate. But she was very pleased to be able to stop talking about mating rituals.

"In this book are stories. Like I said before, my aunt Irma copied it, she wrote it. She writes very neat, but it might be easier to start with normal words than with picking out a short one here and there in the book. It is written on vellum, specially cured hides. It should not get wet. That is why it was wrapped in normal leather and oiled leather. You can keep it here, there are some pictures in it, which a friend of my aunt painted for her. Then later, you could look for letters, words you have learned."

The slate on her knees, and the chalk in her hand she wrote "bread" on top of the slate, saying it aloud. Then, beneath that, she wrote the word again, but now she placed the letters in a vertical row, again saying each letter aloud as she wrote it. She wrote them big. As big as possible, with leaving enough space for Draco to copy each letter two or three times.

A bit worried she looked at Draco's big hands and the talons on his fingers.

"Do sit down," she invited him, "writing is easier that way. Sitting at a table would be even more comfortable, but this will do. Copy the letters I wrote down, look at them and memorize what sound they represent in the word bread. Keep doing it until your letters are the same as mine, as big, as round or straight. Just wipe your letters away and try again."

When she left that afternoon, she wrote the word "bread" anew on the cleaned slate. It was as she had feared, his fingers and his talons were too big.

"If you could retract them like a cat," she said when she held on to his hand to climb the first few steps before she would slip into the last over-glove, "that would make things a lot easier."

The next day she couldn't go. But the next one after she tried. Standing at the foot of the stairs, she knew she had to turn back. Too much snow had landed on them.

"Draco!" She hollered. She knew he sometimes he sat on the ledge.

 

[JadeKnight]

He watched and listened closely as she began teaching him how to read and write. The concept was a little more in-depth, an obvious thing to him, but he didn't mention that to her. His claws did make a difference in how he was trying to hold the chalk, making things just a little bit difficult to do. The concept of him retracting his claws was a novel one to him, as he had never found the need to do such a thing before. He had also noticed the writing she showed him was very different that what he had found.

He wasn't sure what that meant yet, but he would figure it out soon. The picture book she left for him to look at was a nice gesture, and he thanked her for it. He copied what she wrote carefully, but he foundt the chalk board a bit awkward to use.

After she had left, he practiced writing the letters and word she had shown him. However he didn't use the chalkboard, but a large open space on the top of the altar, rubbing it clean after filling it up.he left the boom in the alcove nearest the entryway, unopened. He didn't want to rip the delicate hide or book itself yet.

When Kylikki arrived two days later, Draco had finished practicing writing and had decided to take a break. He was halfway up the passage when he heard her name. He gave a smile and run up to the edge of the opening, peering out.

"And who is it that calls put the mighty Draco, Island king?"

He knew who it was, but he wanted to tease her a little.

 

[dutchrain]

What did he call himself? "Mighty Draco, Island-king"? Kylikki chuckled.

"Kylikki, daughter of Edna, daughter of Olaf." She had to take a deep breath and the freezing air flowing into her lungs made her cough. "Too much snow on the stairs. Too dangerous to climb them. I am going home. Wish you a nice day!"

 

[BATEMAN_PATRICK]

.....

 

[JadeKnight]

Draco chuckled and shook his head, at least she could take his attempt at a joke. Hearing her complain about the snow on the steps and wanting to go home, he smirked. He stepped forward and jumped out of the cave. Spreading his wings, he gliding down to Kylikki and landed softly near her.

"Now now, I can't leave my teacher out in the cold and go home like that."

With a smile, he moved closer to her. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him. With her backpack on, he had to place one hand just at the small of her back and then other on her ass. Holding gently but carefully, he flapped his wings a few times before they lifted off the ground.

Making sure she was secure, he flew her up to the cave. He landed just inside and let her go once she was secure on her feet.

"Now you can't say I let you out in the cold."

He smiled and motioned for her to lead the way.

 

[dutchrain]

"Now now, I can't leave my teacher out in the cold and go home like that."

A little yelp escaped Kylikki's mouth when Draco wrapped his arms around her, and instantly she reached up and put her hands on his shoulders. Her face against his chest, her legs dangling in a peculiar way, she felt herself lifted from the ground. Very conscious of where Draco's hands were, and how he smelled, she was glad she felt the rocky surface of the ledge under her feet.

"Now you can't say I let you out in the cold."

Kylikki took a step back and took a breathe. It didn't help, his scent was still in her nose.

"Mm, right" was all she was able to say. She felt her cheeks starting to burn and was glad Draco motioned for her to take the lead. A bit unsure on her feet for the first few steps, she soon walked the well known path down to the big chamber under the hill.

She listened to the soft clicks off Draco's talons on the rock behind her. She wondered why she had felt so secure before. The other time when he had carried her through the air in his dragon form, she had felt secure too, but in a complete different way. This time she had felt protected. Her cloak and gloves landed on a ring, her backpack on the floor again, and when she sat down, she wound the laces from her legs and looked at her shoes once they were off her feet.

"Is there maybe some butter left from what I brought last time? Otherwise I have to use some lard to make them watertight again after they are dry." She put them to the side, and unpacked her rucksack.

She had brought some smoked bacon with a fair amount of lard on it from the pig they butchered three days ago and some fresh sausages.

"These are raw, I thought we could roast them here, on the fire. How did the writing go?"

 

[JadeKnight]

He studied her from behind as he followed her, but the backpack and clothing blocks most of her figure. He shook his head for a moment before walking past her as she pulled off her things. He paused for a moment as she mentioned about the butter and chuckled. He looked at her for a moment and shook his head.

"No, there is none left. The cave gets cold, but no place cold enough to keep that, I believe. Besides, the bugs would have gotten to it as well."

He grinned for a moment seeing the raw sausage, licking his lips a little. It really didn't matter to him if the meat was raw or not. He grabbed a raw sasuage and bit into it, the juices dribbling from the corner of his lips. He used a finger to wipe the juice off and lick it off, not wasting a drop.

"I think it's going pretty well so far. The slate was a little small for my use, so I used the walls of the cavern."

He picked one of the torches and used it to illuminate one of the walls he used.

 

[dutchrain]

"No, there is none left. The cave gets cold, but no place cold enough to keep that, I believe. Besides, the bugs would have gotten to it as well."

"Duh. Put it a bit higher up in the tunnel. It gets colder with every step you take and bugs don't like the winter."

Kylikki shuddered while she watched Draco bite in the raw sausage and lick the juice. On her socks she followed him to wall he lighted. Something tickled the back of her mind, but she forgot it when she looked at the scribbling on the wall.

"Nice decoration. Especially the change from the wobbly letters at the top to the neater ones lower down. Bread. I think the next word should be "is" then we do "made" that is only one new letter though, and then "from", again only one new letter, and then "wheat", three new ones. Or, we could do "and" and "butter" and "taste" and "good". She did her very best to keep a straight face.

 

[JadeKnight]

He chuckled at her mention of his writing making nice decorations. He used the palm of his free hand to erase most of it away as she spoke of what to write next. He nodded in response for a moment, though he didn't catch what she thought was funny.

"I guess that would be a good way to handle butter keeping good in this weather. I shall remember to do that next time."

He smiled as he turned to her, replacing the torch back in it's bracket.

"I hope you brought more of that chalk, since I ran out of it last night. And I can work on those words just fine. Just show me what to do."

Though he wasn't quite sure of the spelling of the words, he was pretty sure he could figure them out from their sounds. As she wrote out what he was to learn, he sat near her, watching closely. He was quiet for a few moments before speaking again.

"Why are you not mated?"

 

[dutchrain]

Kylikki's eyebrows rose on her forehead when Draco erased most of what he wrote. She noted he didn't get her joke, but decided to explain it later. Much later, if it all. She walked back to her cushion and sat down. Again a thought was at the back of her mind. She dug a few pieces of the chalky rock out off her backpack.

"There is none of this on the island, but sometimes a storm throws it on the shore. The floor here, it is really smooth. Normally one feels little chips tugging at the socks, but not here."

She fought the urge to move away from Draco, he was sitting very close to her when she wrote "is made from wheat".

"Why are you not mated?"

"That is a very private question." She stated. "Normally one doesn't ask such questions. Unless one is on a very private level with someone. And even then one would word it differently. We don't talk about ourselves as "mated". We say married, engaged if some promises have been made, or involved if one is thinking about maybe making promises some day. If a person is not married there might be many reasons. Maybe the husband or the wife died and the question might stir painful feelings again. Maybe promises were made, but broken. Again asking might stir painful feelings like sorrow. It is much better to ask a person close to the one, one wants to know about. If a person is married, one would know, because that person would be wearing blue beads, women in the braids on their head, men in the braids in their beard. The beard grows on the chin of a man." Kylikki realized she hadn't answered Draco's question.

"I am not married because the man I was involved with three years ago died at sea, and the man I was engaged with a year ago, didn't come back from one of the King's raids."

 

[JadeKnight]

Draco was quiet as she tried to explain how their pairing and the flaunting of it worked. Well, it wasn't flaunting, but more signs of showing when they were mated. Like some of the other things she had told him about, he thought it was just complicated. He wondered why they had to make things so complicated, but he didn't say anything. He gave a nod when she finaly did tell him why she was unmated.

"I see. Things haven't gone so well for you in that area then."

He decided to turn the subject away from that to the cavern.

"There are few rough areas in my nest. Every surface has been smoothed to the point of being like...well, smooth as your skin. There are more passages deeper beneath the island. I do not know how the former inhabitants did such a thing. They even have their own form of tongue written in the passages."

 

[dutchrain]

With a small nod from her head and a mumbled "thank you" Kylikki answered Draco's words.

She continued to write on the slate. "Butter is made from the milk", "We milk the cows twice a day", "Bees make honey.", "My socks are made from wool." and "We shave the sheep to get their wool." She figured that if he was going to write on the walls anyway, she fill the slate with phrases. She lifted her hand from the slate, and put it back to write "please" and "thank you" in a corner.

"There are few rough areas in my nest. Every surface has been smoothed to the point of being like...well, smooth as your skin. There are more passages deeper beneath the island. I do not know how the former inhabitants did such a thing. They even have their own form of tongue written in the passages."

Kylikki looked up, stared at Draco.

"More passages? You mean more tunnels and chambers like this one? Water makes rocks smooth. Maybe once, very long ago water ran through this room? Or maybe they used sand and water to hone the floor, to polish it? We do it with the plates and other things we make. Could we explore some of the tunnels? Did you?" She knew she babbled, the remark about her smooth skin bothered her somewhat. he had only touched her cheek once, and her hands a few times. And the skin on her hands certainly wasn't smooth.

That day Draco showed her the entrance behind the statue he knocked over before he flew her down. In the following days he picked her up, and brought her back down to the feet of the stairs. They spent more time exploring the passages and chambers, some small, some a bit bigger, but none as big as Draco's nest, than on lessons. Kylikki did write new sentences on the slate every day she visited him, and he did exercise his writing on the wall. The piece of the wall Draco had chosen to write on, became quite light over the time. It looked like he rubbed the chalk in, instead of away. One day Kylikki filled a bucket with snow and put it beside the fire to melt. When they came up from their exploration she used a piece of old cloth to wash the wall for as high as she could reach.

On another day she brought him a broom and swept the floor. They both were a bit surprised with the amount of crumbs and white powder she heaped up beside his fireplace. Draco asked her, what she wanted to do with it, and Kylikki shrugged her shoulders.

"Throw it in the fire and throw it out on the midden with the ashes."

She then had to explain him, what a midden was. It was then, that she blushed the most fiercely she had ever done in his presence because she realized he must have a midden somewhere, and she asked herself if dragon shit would be a good fertilizer. Her blush grew when she thought of the small midden she had created in the forrest in the little valley behind a big boulder. Kylikki took great care to arrive at the beach with an empty bladder and she emptied it again when she left Draco. She always covered her waste with snow.

She noticed his bed had become a bit bigger a few days after a fierce storm which had lasted for three days, but she didn't comment on it. Luckily the storm had occurred during her second moon-time since she had started to visit Draco in his nest.

They both were intrigued by the writing on the walls of some of the passages and chambers. In some of the chambers were fireplaces, those almost always had ledges along the walls, broad and high enough to comfortably sit on, and most even broad enough for two or three people to sleep on. All the chambers were adorned with niches and shelfs. In one chamber the found a heap of old leather and furs. Kylikki gasped when she saw all the furs were of the big white ice-bears.

They both agreed the smaller chambers below Draco's nest once had been living quarters.

Finally, after some discussions over a few days, Draco allowed her to copy a few of the inscriptions to show them to Irma.

 

[JadeKnight]

He worked on everything she gave him to write, picking up on it quickly. After the trick with the water and old cloth, he branched out on thinking and writing new stuff on his own most of the time it was all gone by the time Kylikki arrived to teach more.

He was also continuing to experiment with the shape-shifting spell to change little things. He was able retract his claws into his fingers to be more agile with them. The sensation was a little odd at first, but he soon learned to get used to it. He had also used the cover of the fierce storm to his advantage, venturing out into the village during the nights in humanoid form. The snow quickly filled in any signs of his presence there.

He had been curious about her explanation of the mating for pleasure. It was just a hunch the night time would be the best time for such observations. He did get lucky and was able to catch two couples in the act, one of them from beginning to end. He wasn't able to get a close look at their anatomy, but it was enough for him to consider adjustments for later. He, of course, kept his activity from Kylikki.

His search for food sent him further south, during which he had found more sunken ships. They in turn had lots more treasure for him to pick up and add to his nest.

Draco wasn't quite sure what was driving the new feelings he was having, but they were and had been growing stronger the more time he spent with Kylikki. Maybe it was being away from his own kind, or just the thought of staying alone that made him gravitated towards wanting the younger female as a mate. He knew she would die in under a hundred intervals of the sun, but that didn't matter much.

It was another cold morning and Draco was in his natural state as he watched the waves lap at the snow-covered beach. He sat on his haunches as he waited to see Kylikki and possibly hear anything about the writing they had found.