He still had his head lowered and I saw that the head itself was longer than my entire body was tall. He had his enormous head all the way down, so that his chin was resting on the ground, and I could see that he had a pair of curving white horns which swooped straight back from his forehead in a graceful arc over his long neck. He had ears like a horse and they were pricked forward, as though waiting to hear anything I might say to him. Should I talk? What should I say?
“Hello,” I murmured, feeling foolish.
The Drake didn’t make any reply, he just kept looking at me. His skin was made of many tiny interlocking scales, the size of my thumbnail. They were royal purple with an iridescent tinge of emerald green—they glimmered like jewels in the moonlight
Really, he was a beautiful creature, I thought. If only he wasn’t so big. Still, I walked closer and the Drake held perfectly still, not moving or saying a word—if he could even speak in this form, which I wasn’t sure about. He just stayed completely immobile, as though waiting for me to make the first move—whatever that ought to be. I had no idea.
I watched his flaring nostrils—again like a horse’s—but there wasn’t so much as a puff of smoke, let alone any fire or a jet of flame coming from them. It seemed that Ari’s Drake was on his best behavior and it occurred to me that he was trying very hard not to scare me, which was probably difficult when I was about the same size to him that a very small kitten would be to me.
What could he possibly want with me?
Earlier I’d had the nightmarish thought that he wanted to eat me, but now I rejected the idea because it just wasn’t practical. I wouldn’t even make a mouthful for him—he probably wouldn’t even taste me. What would be the point of doing something as socially unacceptable as eating me—which would doubtless get Ari into endless trouble—when the payoff would be slim to none in the flavor department?
So again the question remained, why did the Drake want me?
He looked at me steadily with those golden eyes and it occurred to me, as though someone had whispered the thought in my ear, that he wanted me to touch him. And also, that he wanted to touch me—to hold me the same way Ari did when he cradled me against his chest—but the Drake was holding himself back. Doubtless because he knew that if he reached for me with his big, taloned claw I would run away screaming, unable to overcome my instinct to get away from predators and danger anymore.
“Should I touch you?” I asked him, feeling foolish again. “Do…do you want me to?”
In answer, the Drake gave a very soft snort. The sound was very like something a horse makes when it’s feeling friendly and inquisitive, although it was a great deal deeper, of course. It put me at ease because it reminded me of the summer camp my Mom used to take me to before The Fire. It was an equestrian riding camp and I had actually become a pretty good rider in the several years that I went there.
I came right up to the Drake’s long muzzle, looking him in the eye as I went. I felt mesmerized by the swirling golden depths—pulled towards him by some force I didn’t understand. Slowly, as though moving underwater or in slow motion, I put out a hand and stroked his nose, exactly as I might have done with a horse—a really huge horse—to get to know him.
The moment I touched his skin, everything changed.
At the skin-to-skin contact, I could suddenly hear him. Not like a voice in my mind, though. It was more like a river of emotion flowing through the enormous beast, which now flowed through me, too.
And the emotion I felt was love.
Love and longing and protectiveness and possessiveness and desire—all of those strong currents flowed through the immense being before me and now they flowed into me as well. It was like his feelings were a rainbow of light pouring into me, filling me, connecting me to the Drake in a way I hadn’t even known was possible.
“Oh,” I whispered, looking into the vast, swirling golden eye. “Oh, now I understand.”
The Drake sent a feeling of joy and relief, but it seemed to be mixed with a bit of smugness as well. Ari had been afraid I wouldn’t see that we were meant to be together, he informed me—though how he was sending me these complex thoughts without words was difficult to understand. Still he managed to inform me that Ari had thought I would be frightened of him and run away.