162 Chapter 162

"How are the legs… and wings… feeling today?" Neia said as soon as she sat up from her bedroll.

"Good." Olasird'arc answered as he usually did. But then he did what he didn't usually do, he flapped his wings. "I can't stay aloft for long, but they're strengthening. And landing…?" His head and long neck swayed back and forth. "I probably woke your nearest city when I tried."

"Right, the roar… well at least things are quiet now." Neia said as she got up and pulled out a roll of improvised bandages, "We haven't had any incursions for weeks. I even ran into a scout, I got them to take off, of course, but things have been generally quiet. Give me a moment here, I'm going to have to change your bandages and check the injuries again, sorry, I can't do it without climbing on you." She set the bow aside and quickly got to work after her usual apology.

The broken dragon waited it out without criticism, and his tongue darted out to snag a haunch of venison. Cooked meat turned out to be fairly good, and while he savored the flesh that practically melted on his tongue, the little human worked. Her fearsome eyes had served as one of her most potent weapons in the incursions that ventured south, her combat skills however... 'That is hard to measure, 'good' by their standards, but by no means a legend. But brave and resourceful, and she uses that to close the gap.' But the expression that seemed always to rest on her face, the narrow eyed look that said, 'you are an insect' promised a well of power that simply didn't exist. And so those survivors, the children, and the badly wounded which she allowed to go back home, always carried the tale of the Dragon and the Archer with them.

"Can you believe the last group?" Neia asked with a laugh, "What kind of name is that? 'The Dragon and the Lady'? At least you're identified correctly. I like 'The Dragon and the Archer' better."

"Are you… not a female? I thought only the women of your race had breasts?" Olasird'arc asked, suddenly confused and curving his neck to look back around at her.

It was no coincidence, he was sure, when Neia tapped the leg a little too hard and made him wince. However, she laughed it off, "You're right, but nobody in my entire life has called me a lady, and I'm considered repulsive, so I prefer to think of what I 'do' rather than what I was born as."

Olasird'arc wasn't always clear on inflections, but having heard the bitterness in his son's voice, he recognized it now in the one nursing him back to health.

But to him it didn't make sense. "You're repulsive?" He looked her up and down in a fresh appraisal, "Other than your eyes, you could be like most any other human as far as I know."

Neia nodded, "That's the point. These," she pointed at her eyes with her fore and middle fingers, "are considered ugly. Human men don't consider murderous expressions to be attractive. Not even in a job centered around slaughter." She snorted, "Go figure."

Olasird'arc let the matter drop and there was silence while she tended to his wounds, and then she hopped off. "I still can't believe it though, who brings their people south… just to ask for one duel? I got absurdly lucky that the stone spitter had an oversized mouth for me to put an arrow through."

"Clever." The dragon acknowledged.

"Everything has a weak spot, you just have to know what it is, and that's part of the job out here. Reading, writing, people don't sing songs about literacy, but it is far more important than anyone thinks. All the wealth you dragons like, is made possible by the keeping of records and the writing of reports. Gold isn't mined from the ground, but from ink and paper." Neia remarked in passing and dusted off her hands.

"By the way…" Neia began as she started up a small fire and set herself to making a little pot of stew, "Assuming you don't plan on eating me after you're healed," she looked up at the dragon whose head loomed over her, "what's next, after you're better, I mean?"

Olasird'arc growled, "You are too short to make a morsel, let alone a meal, plus you bathe too little out here to taste good, and I'm sure you'd give me indigestion. Have no fear, I have no plans on eating you." The dragon reassured her, and at that the blonde human blushed a little.

He wasn't about to say he was grateful, or that he'd come to like the brash, brave little archer, but he made his point nonetheless.

"I don't know. My home is gone, my clan is dead, the Demon Emperor has likely claimed the whole mountain by now. I can find another range, another female to mate with, I pin her, we copulate, and I begin again." The dragon said with some discontent. "One day perhaps we take the whole range as a united people."

"Unity is a source of strength…" Neia responded quietly, "said the exile." She laughed at herself and stirred the fire, sending sparks abound.

"What of you?" The dragon asked in his low, rumbling voice.

She shrugged. "This kind of scouting job goes for several months at a time, you'll be well healed before it ends, so… I say goodbye to you, keep roaming the wilds until my time is up, hope I survive, and go back to my people. Serve out my life with the Paladin order, distress my father, disappoint my mother, and eventually die in some pointless war keeping safe people I've never met and who I wouldn't and who wouldn't like me anyway." She laughed it off like it was an old private joke.

The dragon however, did not laugh either at or with her.

"It all seems kind of pointless sometimes, doesn't it?" Neia finally asked.

"Pointless?" Olasird'arc asked.

"Yes. All that effort, no unity, no real peace, and in the end?" She brought up her hand, snapped her fingers, "and then someone comes along and erases everything you accomplished in a minute. Forgive me for saying this, but I can only be glad that the Demon Emperor did not come here, we'd be in truly dire straits if he had."

"I suppose." Noncommittal, short, but sufficient answer for her.

"Have you ever thought of working with other races?" Neia asked tentatively.

"I had quagoa servants, little furry things, intelligent but primitive, weak. They were essentially slaves, kept because they had some uses." The dragon replied.

"Oh," Neia scratched her head and looked down at the ground, "I've never seen that practice, but slavery doesn't sound that bad. Somebody takes care of everything for you, gives you food, clothing, shelter, and you just have to do normal work, do as you're told, that you'd do for too little to live on otherwise? It's like normal work but safer."

"Clearly you haven't seen it before." The dragon laughed at that.

Neia had no idea what he meant by that, but before she could ask, she felt the dragon stiffen.

"We have company coming." Olasird'arc whispered, and without hesitation, Neia reached for her bow.