Just My Duck

Chapter 16 Carmen

"Relax," The dragon nudges me. "There won't be a flash flood every day."

"Right." I set foot on the muddy road and look at the stream beside it. It's doubled in size. I 'm pretty sure this is our camp but nothing's left. "Where'd all the water go?"

"Ultimately, the Quarry. Maybe the sea if it branched." The dragon comments carelessly. "Hmm, I smell gold." The dragon rushes past me and pulls out a large leather pouch from the mud. When she turns it over nad shakes it, a few of Doug's deposits fall out. "What the fuck?"

So I have to explain that to her too.

"Your boyfriend needed more vegetables in his diet."

"I know." I pick them up and put them back in the bag. "Do you want them?"

"Surprisingly no. You can keep them." The dragon turns her nose up at it. "You know, you can call their names. I'm here even if it attracts predators. Pure carnivores can be rather tasty well done.

"Right." I take a breath and start calling all the names I remember on this expiddition. My voice eventually gives out but with the flood who knows if they're still even near here or how far they were swept in the first place. After what feels like forever we find Nickleson's shield, but there's not much else.

The dragon catches a wild pig and sets it on fire just long enough for some of it to be cooked and edible. It needs salt but I'm too hungry to care. I can drink water from the stream. At night she lets me cuddle up next to her for warmth and safety. I don't see anymore signs of anybody, but that's a good thing, right? No dead bodies means they could be alive. Right?

"Do you think they went up the hills?" I ask looking up.

"How should I know what you'd do?" Reasonable if rude.

"Should we head to the fire school? I think we're getting close. Maybe we can send out a search party." I suggest.

"Fire school. The plae with humans playing with fire magic?" She makes a weird but likely unhappy expression. "We are headed in that direction. But I don't particularly want to go there. They might fire arrows at me and those stick and are itchy and damage my scales." She complains.

"Not if you're small and not threatening them. Can you get any smaller? Like riding on my shoulder small?"

"Hmm. Let me see." She shrinks somem ore until she's looking up at me from the ground.

"Perfect." I pick her up and drape her around my neck and shoulders. "They won't shoot you now."

"This is kind of comfortable." She admits. "Look up to your left. Do you see a bridge? I'm pretty sure it leads to the school." She gently turns her head with my tail.

"I guess we'd better go up to it then." I turn off the path and head up towards the bridge. The path I reach up there is much better maintained. It's practically a road. The bridge is covered with vines but the vines are wrapped around what look like cables but they're wood. Are they roots? Is this one of those cool root bridges? But there's a stone path on it making it easier to travel.

It feels like forever as I walk but eventually wooden walls appear in the distance. That seems like a bad design for a school that teaches fire magic. Why not use stone? It looks especially bad for defense against a dragon. It doesn't matter though. I'm good as long as they have beds and aren't some austere monk like order who only eats gruel and sleeps on stone beds and such.

"You're sure they won't try to shoot me when I'm this small?" The dragon says warily. "It's much more inconvenient like this if they do. It tends to bruise."