Trinket (Reverse Harem)

*Tink*

"Is anyone going to stop us?" Asund asked as a matter of practical concern.

"Doubtful," Ormiss said, eyeing the dragons already milling around the plateau despite it being just past dawn. And it was very cold.

Out of curiosity, I scooped up a handful of the freezing cold water in my palm and sipped it. I recoiled and fought the urge to gag.

"Theia?" Itek asked.

"It tastes like..." I smacked my lips, grimacing. The water was pure. Like exquisitely, wonderfully, amazingly pure. Like nothing I'd ever tasted in this life, but I remembered from some other time. "...it's pure, but it also tastes like... I don't have a word for it."

It wasn't death, or torment, or welter, or anguish, or grief. It was all those things. And the taste lingered like bad wine.

Asund sipped some from his palm. He watched crystal drops fall off his fingertips. "I don't taste anything but the lack of taint. Which is amazing."

Each of my consorts tried the water in turn. Only Ormiss could taste the other taste--but he didn't taste it as strongly as I did. To me, the water was undrinkable. To him, it was gross, to my other consorts, it was the sweetest water they'd ever had. They didn't taste the dead unicorn's devastated magic. Which upset them more than it upset me.

So the dragons could just have all this wonderful, pure water--the last in the world--and not taste how rotten it was, or what it had cost?

Ethat, in dragon form, fretted and clicked his teeth while he stared morosely at the water. Fireflies drifted around him, but there were some patches of withered scales from our arrival here. I went to him and snuggled against his big shoulder. He curled his neck around to nibble on my heavy robes, and he pulled one wing forward to briefly shield me from the biting wind.

Mrrpp chirp chirp.

"I'm sure you'll keep me safe," I said, snuggling into his scales. He was warm like spring sunlight.

Mrp.

I gave him a playful push. "Get to work."

Korr clicked his teeth--he was also in dragon form--and Ethat grumbled something back, and the two brothers bickered amongst themselves while Itek and Ormiss stood close to me and Asund kept a watchful eye on the increasing number of dragons coming to the plateau to set up shop and conduct business.

Ethat shifted his wings and lifted himself up onto the edge of the pool, his claws braced on the stone, so he peered down the column of blue. Vines rose off his shoulders and plunged into the water, deeper and deeper. His scales brightened and pollen and fireflies swirled around him as more and more vines wove their way into the water, slowly creating a very long tube. Water sloshed over the edges onto the ground as the tube pushed the water to the side while it expanded outwards into a narrow passage.

As Ethat worked, Korr froze the water from the bottom up, pushing even more water out of the pool.

The end result was a clear path to the bottom of the shaft, and a great deal of ice all around the pool. The biggest problem I saw was the shaft wasn't large enough for anything with wings to fly down.

"Change of plans," Asund said as he crouched on the ice and peered down the shaft. "I will carry Theia down. But you go first, Ormiss."

"Agreed." Ormiss vaulted up onto the ice like it was not slippery and banished his staff with a flick of lightening.

"Need me to carry you?" Asund asked with a feral grin.

Ormiss dropped over the edge of the shaft, fingers twisted in the vines. "I spent plenty of time crawling sail rigging, wolf."