…or, Coin Toss
I spotted Marlot sitting in a bench inside a glass-walled lounge inside the sleek and modern-looking visitors’ center. The building was painted beige and sandy colors, built low the ground, and seemed to grow out a hill, as natural an extension as rocks or trees. It had to be the only structure on west campus built in the third century, and it looked like some serious gold had gone into its design. Even from a distance, I could tell the furniture in the lounge was much better quality than anything in the student union or the dorms.
I thought of the university as being a wizard school. It was known for its enchantment program. It was also the biggest imperial university on the plains, though. It made sense that agronomy would be a big deal.
Marlot saluted me with a tall paper coffee cup as I came inside.
“They have an espresso bar,” she said, pointing at the counter at the back of the lounge. There was a short line. People were arrayed around the lounge, some of them with drinks. “Vanilla raspberry mocha, just like grandma used to make back on the farm.”
“Nice,” I said, grabbing the seat beside her. “Maybe I’ll get something before I go back out.”
“There’s a deli counter, too,” she said, pointing. “But it looks like it’s only open on school days.”
“They don’t make the farm students bring their lunch in a bucket any more, huh?” I asked.
“I’m sure they have lard as topping, so no one misses the old days,” she said. “Might want to make sure Violet knows about this place.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s not into lard.”
“I meant if she needs to retreat,” Marlot said. “From the crowd or the animals or whatever.” She looked around at the curving glass wall that enclosed two sides of the space. “I’ve got a feeling she’d like this.”
“I didn’t think you cared for Violet.”
“Every time she opens her mouth, I’m picturing one of us being strangled,” Marlot said. “Still, might want to mention it to her.”
“She’s talking to Barley right now,” I said. “She’s going to invite her to move in, officially.”
“Think Barley will accept?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Barley’s smitten.”
“Really? Are you sure she’s not just a nymph?”
“A nymph with a bad case of the smits,” I said. “I mean, I think she likes me a little, above and beyond the call of whatever, but the way she looked at Violet was something else.”
“Huh,” Marlot said. She shook her head. “A nymph with a crush.”
“What?” I asked.
“I can’t imagine anything less healthy.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, think about how balanced your first relationships have been,” she said. “Missy and Iason. Think about how my ‘first love’ went, back in high school.”
“Yeah, love stinks,” I said. “I don’t see why a nymph would make things worse. If anything, wouldn’t that make things better?”
“Why?”
“Because, well,” I said. It seemed obvious to me. When I tried to put it into words, I couldn’t find any. “Nymph, you know? Seems like she’d be good at love.”
“I’m sure she’s good at sex,” Marlot said. “But that doesn’t translate into being good at everything that’s ever been used as a euphemism for sex. Although imagine if she was? That would be an exceedingly extensive and random list of skills.”
“I think nymphs are probably capable of genuine love,” I said.
“Sure,” Marlot said. “Most people are. But that doesn’t translate into good, healthy relationships. I could swing a sword but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t hurt myself doing it.” She gave a big, forced shrug. “I guess Violet must know how she feels, though.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And I really don’t care if either of them gets hurt. It might be fun to watch.”
“Sure it might,” I said, giving her a little smile.
Marlot scowled at me.
“Don’t be a smartass,” she said. “I don’t care what they do. They’re both adults-ish. The only reason I’m saying anything to you now is so that I have somebody to say ‘I told you so’ to later.” She reached for her cane. “I think I’ve sat around enough. You want to go show me the sights?”
“Let me get a coffee first,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, handing me her cup. “Toss this out and get me another?”
“Vanilla raspberry mocha?”
“No, make it a raspberry vanilla mocha,” she said. “No sense getting stuck in a rut.”
The sun was bright. Sitting inside the glass cooker for even a minute had made me start to feel it, so I got my vanilla white chocolate mocha blended with ice.
“You know what my uncle always says about drinks like this,” Marlot said when I handed hers over.
“‘If you want to drink a candy bar, drink a candy bar, but leave the damn coffee alone.’,” I quoted.
“If somebody made drinkable candy bars that were chock full of caffeine, I would,” Marlot said. She looked down at the cup in her hand and feigned surprise. “Oh, there it is,” she said, and she took a swig.
“So, we’ve established that nymphs aren’t going to be better at love,” I said as we headed out and back into the throng. I wanted to know what she’d been getting at, before we encountered the others and I forgot about it. “What makes you think they’d be any worse?”
“Okay, well, go back to what I said about first loves,” Marlot said. “That’s naiveté and inexperience, right?”
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” I said.
“So who’s going to be more inexperienced with that kind of interpersonal relationships than somebody who’s spent her entire existence engaged in another form of them?” Marlot asked. “I’m sure she’s done things that would make a dwarf blush, but how often do you think she sat down and had a nice little chat with somebody before she came to school?”
“Well, there were other nymphs,” I said.
“Right, and three minutes of hearing her talk about Amaranth is enough to tell you how good they were for conversation,” Marlot said. “Which is basically three minutes of hearing her talk, period. Which also tells you how good she is at conversation.”
“If her whole life really has been sex up to this point, then I think she’s doing pretty good,” I said. Marlot wasn’t attacking Barley. Not really. But I felt like defending her anyway. She was no damsel and I was no knight, but she tripped that trigger in me anyway.
“Yeah, she exceeds expectations,” Marlot said. “But again. People who were brought up and socialized normally still manage to get their hearts torn out on a regular basis.”
I thought Marlot was just bitter, but I didn’t say anything.
“And I’m not just bitter,” she said, stabbing her cane down on my toes.
“Ow!” I said. “I didn’t say you were.”
“You didn’t have to. You were thinking it.”
“Is telepathy contagious now?” I asked.
“No,” Marlot said. “But you can’t tell me you weren’t thinking that.”
“I was,” I said. “You never talk about it. I know you think about it because you bring it up all the time, but you always talk around it. It‘s got to be weighing on you.”
“Says you,” Marlot said. “Maybe I’m being considerate of your feelings.”
“What feelings are those?” I asked.
“The ones you don’t want to talk about,” she said. “The ones that only seem to exist when I mention another guy.”
“Physical revulsion? Complete lack of interest?”
I moved my foot aside as she jabbed her cane at me again.
“Curse your elven reflexes,” she said.
“You mean your human clumsiness,” I said.
“Whatever. When you‘re ready to talk, I‘ll be ready to talk,” she said. She lifted her arms skyward. “In the meantime, though: how about those fucking dragons?”
It had to be said. We’d actually got so caught up in the interpersonal bullshit that I’d forgotten where we were and what we were doing. Magestrix, the great horned red dragon, was flying overhead, wheeling around and shooting streams of fire in the direction of Claude, who was breathing lightning back. A green dragon wheeled through the sky between them. Neither flame nor lightning hit living flesh. It was a breathtaking display of precision on the parts of the mounts and the riders.
My wrist tingled. I knew what that kind of closeness felt like, from the dragon’s perspective. If Iason had been there, I would have been dragging him off to the woods for a quick ride. Instead I just watched and felt small and huge at the same time.
“James!” Barley’s voice cut through the crowd like a silver knife. I looked down from the spectacle and saw her running towards us, her breasts bouncing and the tied-on shirt flapping loose. “Oh, James! You won’t believe it!”
Play dumb. She’s way too thrilled about having a surprise to kill it.
“Won’t believe what?” I asked as Barley caught her breath.
“Violet says I can move in with her!” she said, throwing her arms around me. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Hey, yeah,” I said. “So much for not having your own place, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Oh, I didn’t even think of it that way. That‘s great.”
I looked at Marlot, who nodded slightly. She saw it, too. Barley was having a total smit-fit.
She’ll get over it, Violet thought. She was just catching up to Barley. She’d lost her sandals somewhere. Didn’t seem like the best part of campus to be walking around barefoot, but it was her feet.
“Of course, we’ll all be happy to help you move your stuff,” Marlot said.
“Oh! I don’t really have any stuff,” Barley said.
“Imagine that,” Marlot said.
The aerial display had ended while we were talking and the dragons were coming in for their landings.
“Oh, I’ve got to get back to my station!” Barley said. “Do you want to come and meet Aurora?” She looked at Violet. “I don’t have to feed her right away.”
“Yeah, okay,” Violet said.
“There’s a nice little lounge with glass walls and a coffee shop,” Marlot said.
Barley fixed her shirt halter, and we headed to the cages where the three little mockdragons clucked and hissed at her like they knew she was tardy. Barley apologized to them as well as to the small crowd that was waiting. She pulled a gold coin on a chain out of somewhere, and then got the little gold dragon out.
“Everybody, this is Aurora,” she said. “As you can see, she’s a gold mockdragon. A true gold dragon has scales of gold, and you can tell by looking at it. Because mockdragons are diluted from true dragons, they look golden but when you hold real gold up next to them, you can see a difference in luster.”
She held the spinning coin up next to the creature perched on her wrist. Its head whipped around and it bit the coin out of the air. Barley gasped and then laughed.
“Mockdragons do share some of the instincts of their larger ancestors, of course,” she said. “Including hunting and the impulse to hoard.”
Aurora transferred the coin from its—from her, probably—mouth to her forepaws, then looked around as if she wasn’t sure where to put it now that she had it. From the number of teeth marks all around the coin’s face, I guessed this wasn’t the first time she’d gotten ahold of it.
“I’m told that this is actually one of Aurora’s favorite toys,” Barley said, gently pulling the coin out of her clawed hands. The mockdragon became agitated, but relaxed when she saw Barley tuck it into the bedding in her cage. “She has expensive tastes, compared to a cat or dog. Gold’s her favorite, naturally, but copper, silver, and anything shiny will attract her attention. I’d keep your change and keys in your pockets when she starts flying.”
She raised her wrist and clicked her tongue and Aurora was off. While she flew around, Barley recited her speech about the origins of mockdragons. She hadn’t attached the glowing line, and Aurora flew higher and further than Verdant, the green, had done.
“As a gold, Aurora is both more intelligent and gentler than some of the other mocks,” Barley said. “We don’t need to leash her because she’s always return to the cage as long as her ’hoard’ is there. If you’d like to make a contribution to the Wings and Things Conservation Fund, very carefully take out a coin and toss it in the air. One or two at a time, please.”
I looked around. Other people were doing the same. Barley was looking expectant and worried. Somebody had to be first. I dug a copper coin out, put it on my thumb, and waited until Aurora was looking. That wasn’t necessary. As soon as she’d even started to turn, she veered and made a beeline right for my hand. I yelped and gave my thumb a clumsy flick, and the penny went tumbling up and off to the side. Aurora’s wing nicked my forehead as she passed.
“James!” Barley yelled. Several people gasped and shrieked. Blood trickled down into my eye. Tiny or not, mock or not, gold or not, part of the brain still responded to Aurora as a fucking dragon! It didn’t take much to produce panic.
“Warning: getting cute with dragons may be hazardous to your health,” Marlot proclaimed, and she tossed a silver coin up into the air, then raised her cane and pointed the handle at it. The coin began to quiver in midair and then zip around as she directed it. “Unless you’re very, very good at it.”
The crowd forgot to keep freaking out as Marlot directed the coin around, teasing Aurora and keeping her guessing. It was like watching a cat chase an illusionary light, times about a hundred.
“Here, let me get that,” Barley said, reaching out for my forehead. There was a warm tingle, and the pain went away. “I’m sorry. I should have—I don‘t know. It‘s my show. I should have been in control.”
“My fault,” I said. “You said to be careful, and I tried to show off.”
Marlot made the coin shoot straight up and then released it.
“You owe me a silver,” she said.
“How about a seafood dinner?” I said. “Next Friday.”
“Deal.”
With panic averted, people got into the spirit of things and started pitching their own coppers and a few silvers. Aurora caught them and dove for her cage, chucking them in and wheeling away to catch the next one.
“Doesn’t she get pissed when they clean her cage out?” I asked.
“They leave the newest and shiniest coins for her to bed down with for a while,” Barley said. “They’re as safe there as they are anywhere.”
“This is fun,” Violet said, looking up, and I looked to see that she was jerking the coins around as they were thrown, giving Aurora a challenge for each one. She glanced sideways at Marlot. “Look, Ma, no wand.”
“Nobody likes a show-off,” Marlot said.
We stayed and watched until Barley put Aurora away. Her task got harder when Aurora spotted the axe on my hip, with its silver and gold and jewels. Violet made the coins in the cage start rattling around, and the little gold dragonling stopped struggling immediately and jumped on her treasure pile to hold it down.
“Maybe we should be moving on,” I said, smiling apologetically.
“You go,” Violet said. “I’m going to hang here.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
She’ll get sick of me faster if I stick around, she thought. Absence makes the heart, yadda yadda.
“Come on, James,” Marlot said, pulling on my belt. “Enough of the warm-up act. I want to go meet some of the stars.”
We went around to see the lesser dragons, though “lesser” was an odd description since the only thing to compare them to were the mocks. They were true dragons in every sense of the word. Their smaller size and bestial brains didn’t diminish their majesty.
I was amused to see a dour-looking hobgoblin making clumsy passes at Margaret as we made the rounds. She just laughed it off. Hobgoblins were supposed to be single-minded, but he was downright oblivious. He was still at it half an hour after I first noticed him. I would have liked to tell him that he was barking up the wrong tree.
With Marlot there to take the piss out of me, I didn’t bother sharpening my skills on any of the other riders or Wings staff. Though Perseus, the elven rider started to come onto me until he spotted the stag bracelet.
It wasn’t much longer after that when Marlot declared she needed to sit down. I asked her if she wanted company, but she pointed, and I saw that Violet was walking with all haste towards the visitor building. She was pale as snow.
“You really want to be alone with her?” I asked.
“Why not?” Marlot said. “It might be good to chat, blossom to blossom. Unless you don’t think you’ll be okay on your own.”
“I’ll go hang with Barley,” I said.
“You’re so co-dependent,” Marlot said. “Come get me when you’re ready to go back?”
“You done?”
“Done walking. I can watch the skies from the lounge,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Barley’s pretty good with healing—”
“You should keep that in mind if you feel like teasing any more dragons today, but I’m fine,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “Talk to you later, then.”
“Later,” she said.
Whatever Marlot claimed, she was the real master of not talking about things, not me.
I couldn’t make her go to Barley for a quick fix-up and I couldn’t carry her up the hill—nor would she have let me—so I just turned and walked away.
