Dragon Country, part 4
Mar. 15th, 2014 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestPlease note: this story contains a scene of rape and violence
This weekend he had a wind-up pocket light, and matches, and extra food and water so that he could stay longer. The tram driver looked at him with world-weary eyes as he sprang aboard, but Lance did not care that he was grinning like a lunatic. He was going to dragon country. He bounded off the tram at the end of the line, and sang uninhibitedly as he strode through the woods.
It was easier getting through the dimensions now he knew he could do it. Lance set out confidently, and felt the snap of understanding as he looked at the snowglobe and imagined JC's sculptures. He almost thought he could do it with his eyes open, but decided not to try, not this time, anyway. He was too eager to get there.
He headed straight for the valley with the cave, determined to get inside and see what might be there. It was such a very dragonish place. When he reached it, he forced himself to sit at the entrance and eat an oat bar before he got the new pocket light out, wound it a couple of times just to be sure, and headed into the tunnel with its light playing on the ground in front of him.
It opened out into a cave of wonders. At first, Lance thought the lumps were natural formations, and wondered that the dragon had not cleared and flattened this cavern as it had cleared the passage-way; but the lumps glittered in the light's pale beam, and as he got closer he realised that this was not mere rock, this was shaped and made and—this was treasure! Dragon treasure! Metallic gleams of chains, coins, bracelets. Silver, he thought, but perhaps that was the pocket light leaching the colour out of the metal, since everyone knew dragons hoarded gold. There were gems, sparkling darkly. Sapphires, perhaps, and clusters of diamonds on rings and brooches, and great fiery opals in cleaved rock nuggets. A dragon's hoard. Real.
Amazed, Lance stared at the heaped treasures, noticing more and more details—strange, some of them, for now that he looked more carefully he could see that not everything was precious, at least, not by his standards. There were scraps of worked metal which might have come from household machinery—bits of piping, cable, cogs, and was that a hubcap? Over there were what looked oddly like—what were, in fact—old gramophone records, 78s, and the elegant cone of an ancient player, though it was draped with a cascade of gemstones and an evening purse in an Art Deco style was propped against it. A stack of leather-bound books with a curved, jewel-crusted dagger and a Minnie Mouse alarm clock on top. Altogether a much more idiosyncratic hoard than Lance would ever have expected, after the tales of treasure chests and purloined crowns he'd been reading all his life. What kind of dragon would steal these things from the world where humans made them? Why would it crave such stuff?
If it comes back and finds me here, I can ask it, Lance thought. If it doesn't decide it's hungry.
It would be prudent to retreat. But he couldn't, quite, bear to leave this incredible find without something to remind himself, when he got back to his own world, that he had truly found it. There was a small object close to his feet, a ring, bands of twined metal, too large for his ring finger but he slipped it onto his middle finger and it stayed. It was probably very, very stupid to steal something from a dragon's hoard, if all the legends of avariciousness were true, but… none of the legends had mentioned that a dragon might see value in an ancient black telephone, or, or an ostrich feather fan. Then again, it didn't feel entirely right to take something, but perhaps if he offered something in exchange? Would a bar of chocolate do? Lance dug into his backpack and then thought, no, and opened the side pocket where he kept the compass. A shiny, functional thing. The dragon would probably appreciate it, he thought. It was silver, with an elegant pattern and a handsome chain. He'd never needed the compass, only used it to prove to himself that he knew how; he could navigate perfectly well by the sun, and actually, even when it rained, his sense of direction was pretty reliable. Yes, the dragon should have it. Lance laid the compass carefully next to a shimmering necklace, to make it clear to the dragon that he hadn't stolen anything really valuable.
He retreated back the way he'd come, blinking as he emerged into the open air. It must be about noon, and the world seemed very bright.
On the whole, it might be better not to be in the immediate vicinity if the owner of the hoard came back, he decided, and climbed back up to the crest of hills surrounding the dragon valley. Over yonder was where he'd seen the glorious golden dragon. Would it be insane to try to get closer?
Yes, probably. But he was going to.
He set off determinedly down the slope. The hills the dragon had been spiralling over were higher than the ones surrounding the valley with the cave. It was a pity he couldn't walk across the gap, that he'd have to go down and then up. If he knew more about how to move through the dimensions—oh well. One thing at a time. He'd get up that next hill, and then eat.
He was hot and sweaty by the time he achieved his goal, and took off his top layer. Looking back, he didn't seem to have come so very far, but his legs assured him that the distant woods where he'd emerged into dragon country were a long way off. He probably shouldn't go any further, but he shouldn't need to. This was a great vantage point for dragon-spotting. He shivered, suddenly cold.
*CURIOSITY* filled his head, a huge and foreign curiosity which was certainly, certainly coming from someone, something—he looked around and didn't see any—oh, oh, the shadow on the ground around him was… He looked up.
The golden dragon was hovering high above, and its attention was plainly focussed on him. There was puzzlement in its thoughts, surprise, a hint of disapproval at his bizarre stunted shape—*NO WINGS?*—but mostly there was a relentless pressure of *CURIOSITY*.
Lance scrambled to his feet. "Hello?" he said, and bowed uncertainly.
*SURPRISE*
The dragon wafted gently down. It was enormous. Its head was as long, Lance reckoned, as he himself was tall. Its wings, spread to gentle its descent, would have done a Napoleonic battleship credit, and one of its mighty talons could eviscerate him easily.
It did not seem to be considering evisceration. It seemed baffled, not at all sure what this puny earthbound creature might be. Its huge head snaked forward, and eyes like molten cauldrons surveyed him unfathomably. For all that he'd imagined this moment, Lance had no idea what to do. He wasn't sure he could do anything—his legs seemed unwilling to support him, and he honestly didn't think he could move. His head throbbed from the pressure of the dragon's thoughts.
The dragon examined him for a few moments longer, and then appeared to lose interest. *SMALL*, it thought, and something that felt like *UNIMPORTANT* but might have been *SAVE FOR LATER*, and it reared back, bunched its mighty hind legs and took off into the sky. Lance's legs gave up the struggle and he collapsed to the ground, and his mind was filled with *FLY*JOY*POWER* as the dragon spiralled up into the azure sky. He had never seen anything so magnificent. He watched it and felt its entirely unhuman pleasure pounding like distant kettledrums in his head, and his heart hurt with delight.
And then it was gone. Lance had no idea how long he'd watched the dragon fly—not long enough—but it was gone, and time was still passing, and he must go home. He was cold, he realised, and hurried to put his jacket on. The sky was fading, perhaps because there was no longer a dragon in it, but he didn't want to spend the night here, he wanted a hot bath and his comfortable bed and he wanted, he really, really wanted to be able to tell somebody, anybody, that he had seen a dragon, that he'd had a, well, not exactly a conversation with a dragon, but communication. If only there was someone he could tell.
Adam Lambert might believe him, but Adam exploited dragons for profit, he would want to know where the dragon was, so he could track it and take its skin when it shed. Although now that Lance had seen a dragon—had seen a dragon—close up, he couldn't imagine how one human being could deal with the skin of an entire dragon. Maybe it got packed in the same place that the baby dragonlet in the snowglobe did. Did Adam Lambert own a Mary Poppins carpet bag?
He laughed for joy as he ran down the hill.
That night, Lance's dreams were filled with dragons and treasure and flying over mountains.
*
Adam Lambert should not be allowed to ride a motorcycle. Or wear leather. Lance watched him settle the heavy machine and stride towards the house, and opened the door before Adam had a chance to knock.
"Nice," Adam remarked, flicking his head at the decorative knocker, which was cast iron in the shape of a rather portly wyvern.
"Come on in." Adam followed him into the kitchen, and set his leather jacket—regular leather, although he was wearing the dragon-hide boots—over the back of one of the chairs. "Er, do you have a problem with dogs?" Lance should have asked about this before inviting Adam to his home, but it had only just occurred to him.
"Dogs? A problem?"
"You're not afraid of them, or anything?"
"No. Should I be?"
"No, no, they're good dogs, but you know, some people don't like dogs, if they never grew up around dogs, or, um, whatever. Come on through to the living room and I'll let them in."
The dogs were outside, enjoying themselves as usual, and were very excited to be summoned into the house. The four of them scrambled through the open glass door and then stopped dead, sniffing and cocking their heads like a synchronised canine dance troupe. Weird. "This is Lily," he said. "She's a flirt. Go on, Lily, say hello." The little mongrel walked forward with her tail slowly waving, and Adam dropped to his knees.
"Hi, Lily!" he crooned, and she bounced up to him and made overtures, and ended up with her front paws on his chest, licking his chin while he giggled. Then Foster trotted forward and nosed for attention, and Dingo followed, and Jackson, elderly, grouchy and somewhat arthritic, clicked his way across the hardwood floor, demanded to be stroked, and settled himself at Adam's knee. Adam looked enchanted with all this doggy attention, and petting the beasts seemed to come very naturally to him. "They're adorable," he announced. Lance had to agree.
"You don't have to stay on the floor with them," Lance said, smiling, and after a few minutes more of love, Adam extricated himself and sat on the couch, facing the big glass doors and the expanse of back yard. The dogs arranged themselves on the floor at his feet, and Lance went back to the kitchen for some iced tea. The dogs' obvious trust in Adam was a huge point in Adam's favour, and Lance found himself yet again revisiting Joey's arguments for why it would be good for Lance to have a boyfriend with a solid shield.
"Four dogs!" Adam said as he accepted his drink, and sounded almost envious.
"It works out easier than having just one, because they keep each other busy while I'm out at work." He let them out every morning, and opened up the odd little extension down the side of the house, where their crates and water dishes and beanbags and an ancient couch gave them a comfortable retreat in case of rain or weariness. Jackson spent a lot of time snoozing in there. "That's why I live right out here, it's not so handy for work and seeing friends, but it had the biggest back yard of anywhere I looked at. I only had the three boys when I got this place, but it was perfect."
"And three dogs just wasn't enough," Adam said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I was helping out at a dog shelter—the one where I got Dingo and Foster, actually—and they were trying to get someone to adopt Lily, and I, well. Kinda couldn't resist."
"I'm not surprised." Adam bent down to stroke Lily's absurd curls. "She's such a cutie."
"Did you have a pet dog when you were a kid?"
Adam looked startled. "No, no pets. I don't think I ever thought about it."
"I can recommend a good shelter, if you want to get one."
"I can't. At least—I think I might be spending quite a bit of time away, in the spring. Simon's talking about going national when the record comes out, so." He looked quite regretful. "It must be nice to come home to this little army."
"Yeah." The dogs were always purely happy to see him, exuding thoughts he interpreted as lovelovelovemasterlove and mastergivefoodnowkindmaster and nicemastermorepettings, simple, uncomplicated emotions that infallibly made him feel better. "I'm just going to check on the food, excuse me." As he left the room, Adam was making a fuss of Foster.
They herded the dogs back outside and sat down to a meal of roast chicken which Lance was relieved to find had worked perfectly. Adam was impressed that Lance could cook, and this involved an explanation about Lance's family and how his Mama and Nana had taught him to bake, and how easy roasting a dinner was by comparison to making pastry or a perfectly risen sponge cake. They were eating the apple pie when Adam's right hand darted out to grab Lance's left.
"You have—I don't think I saw you wear jewellery before."
Lance knew an impulse to hide his hand, and the purloined ring, but it was too late for that. "Yeah, this is new."
"It's pretty." Adam was staring very intently at the ring, and he hadn't let go Lance's hand, which was unsettling in a mostly good way. "It looks, what's the word, vintage? Is that the word for it, when it's jewellery? Where did you find it? I love finding new places to shop."
"It's… it wasn't a shop, it was kind of a barter thing." It was no good. If he was going to try this, if there was to be any chance of a relationship here, he'd have to be honest and hope Adam deserved his trust. "Actually, uh. Adam, did you ever, did you ever find a dragon's cave?"
Adam looked at him intently. "Are you saying, you did?"
"Yes. I found the dragon's hoard. And I wanted—I took this because I had to have something to prove to myself that I really found it. So I took it. I guess maybe that wasn't very smart. I mean, a dragon's hoard, you know? Dragon treasure!"
Adam considered. "A dragon usually holds on tight to its treasure," he said.
"So I might be in trouble, if I go back? I did leave it something in exchange," Lance said.
"You did?"
"My compass. My mother will be so mad if she ever finds out, because it was her grandpa's compass, and I think it was silver, but it seemed like, I couldn't take something and not, um, leave something in exchange. I mean, I didn't want to just steal it."
Adam had a very strange expression on his face. "I think," he said after a moment, "that's probably why you were able to take the ring at all. If you left a gift, something meaningful and valuable, then it would be okay."
"I don't even know for sure if that dragon is still there," Lance said. It was a relief to know that someone with a lot more dragon expertise than himself thought it had been a good idea to offer something in exchange for the ring. "I mean, it could have died. It wasn't, like, lying on top of its treasures like in pictures."
"Do you think it died?"
"No. I think it…" Lance laughed, still incredulous. "I think it talked to me. I mean, I think I met it."
"You met it?"
"Not in the cave, but close by. It was—it was—I can't even explain. It was so beautiful. A golden dragon. I never realised how big they were. I saw it before, a week ago, when I took the snowglobe with me and got all the way in, but yesterday it saw me."
"Huh." Adam's face was a study in emotions, and Lance couldn't read them. He had to guess.
"Are you jealous?" he said. Because damn, if Adam had met a dragon and Lance hadn't, he'd be totally consumed with envy.
"Yeah," Adam said eventually. "I am jealous. But don't worry about it. Just—be careful, you know?"
"I've been looking for years, and I didn't know how to get there, and I thought if I could just see one, just to know the dragons weren't all gone, you know, I thought that would be enough, but now I actually saw one and I just, I just, it's so incredible. I'm going to go back." Not that it had been entirely a pleasure, being overwhelmed by the dragon's relentless thoughts, but hell. He could deal with that.
"The dragons certainly aren't gone," Adam said. "Although most people can't find them. But I mean it, Lance. Be careful."
"I will." He intended to.
"That pie was really good," Adam said, and Lance was grateful for the change of subject. "I shouldn't, but, if there's more…?" So they had more pie, and talked of other things, of music and concerts and visual arts, and Chris Kirkpatrick's new job, which made Adam laugh, and the conversation wended its way to JC and his peculiar sculptures and how they'd been helpful in getting Lance to understand the snowglobe, and Adam said he must be sure to see JC's exhibition, maybe they could go together? Lance said it was a date, and if JC's exhibition wasn't going to be open until Adam was away touring, he'd arrange for them to visit JC beforehand so that Adam could see the wonderful weirdness of JC for himself.
Eventually, after coffee and a session in the yard playing toss-the-ring and tug-of-war with the dogs, it was time for Adam to leave.
They went back into the kitchen to retrieve his jacket. He slid it on, hesitated, and stepped closer to Lance. "May I kiss you?"
Lance grinned. "You are very sweet."
"I'm very smitten," Adam said, ruefully.
"I don't know why," Lance said, suddenly sorry. He'd been curt, and rude, and made all kinds of assumptions. "I haven't—I've been—I haven't done anything to deserve it."
Adam's expression was unfathomable, and Lance was oddly grateful not to be able to hear all of Adam's thoughts right now. He wasn't sure he was ready for them.
"You don't even know," Adam said. "I… really want to kiss you."
"Please do," said Lance, and slid into Adam's ready embrace. And, oh, yes, it was wonderful.
*
Adam was busy with his recording sessions and having his photograph taken on location and all kinds of showbusiness business, so they had no chance for anything more than a couple of phone calls. Lance wasn't worried. There was no need to hurry things. Adam was interested, Lance was interested, they could take their time. He had dragons to discover.
Mid-way through the week, Lisa waved a newspaper at him excitedly as he walked through the door, and pointed out a brief item about how noted singer Justin Timberlake had been seen taking artist Britney Spears out for dinner, and afterwards dancing. "Aww," he said, pleased for her.
* * *
He might have thought it would be less exciting going dragon-hunting when he'd already seen—met—a dragon, but as Lance made his sandwiches and put everything into his backpack, he felt just as much anticipation as he had before. More, because he knew now how incredible it could be.
It was unnerving, yes, and he remembered Adam's warning to take care, but he'd not felt any malice in the dragon, last week. If anything it was indifferent to him, which was, to his own surprise, a relief. Anyway, he would take care, he always did.
It was a dull day today, definitely autumn, grey sky and chilly air. As Lance walked through the woods it began to rain, very fine rain, hardly noticeable at all. Lance considered putting on his waterproof, but it would make him hot and sticky, and he'd be fine once he got into dragon country. It was warmer there, and he'd never seen a cloud in the sky.
In fact, why not make the transition now? He'd been in the habit of walking up into the hills for so long now, but there could be no reason to be in a particular spot in order to move through the dimensions. He could probably do it from his own back yard. Maybe next week. Lance pulled out the snowglobe, thought of too many right angles and a golden dragon in the sky, closed his eyes, and stepped through.
"Argh!" It was raining, it was bucketing, great sheets of water falling on him. Lance was soaking wet in seconds, before he could even pick up the backpack. The snowglobe's protective towel was already a sodden rag, and Lance was so wet that his waterproof jacket would be too little and way, way too late. He gasped under the downpour, and decided to make for the cave. At least that way he wouldn't drown! He tucked the wet towel through one of the backpack's loops, put the snowglobe carefully inside, and hoisted it onto his shoulders. At least his lunch was properly wrapped.
He shielded his eyes and looked ahead, but to his surprise the bowl of hills surrounding the valley where he'd found the dragon's hoard was away to the west, and more distant than he'd expected. He seemed to have entered dragon country a few miles from his usual spot, closer to the hills where he'd met the golden dragon. Which would have been great, if he hadn't needed to shelter from the rain.
Well, standing here wouldn't help. There might be another cave. Or an overhang, or something. Lance started to move, hunched pointlessly against the downpour.
Miraculously, he found his overhang after just ten minutes. There seemed to be a slippage in the hillside, a brown shadow under the green, and it did provide shelter—actually more shelter than he'd anticipated, seeing it through the rain, for it proved to be a cave. Just a small one, though, and half full of drifted leaves, no tunnel here to lead to a dragon's hoard. He'd never heard of a dragon having more than one treasure hoard anyway. As wet as if he'd stumbled into a swimming pool, Lance sat with his back against the bare clay, his dripping pack beside him. At least there was no wind. A curtain of water fell over the cave mouth, several feet away, but the water stayed over there and he stayed well clear of it.
And began to shiver. Really, he could not be more wet. And no prospect of drying out… unless… the leaves seemed to be dry. In fact, there were quite a few twigs and bits of branch amongst the heap. There must have been strong east winds a few days ago, he concluded, and the autumn trees had sacrificed worthwhile substance here. If his matches had stayed dry…
They had, thanks to his long habit of packing everything in plastic bags. Shaking a little with cold, Lance piled several twigs into a likely fire and put a match to them. The flame caught, and he fed it with handfuls from the pile. He soon discovered a substantial branch, and set to stamping it into manageable pieces and adding them to his fire.
The exertion warmed him a little, but his clothes were clammy on his skin. He could almost hear his grandmother scolding him to get out of those wet things, and indeed, there was no sense sitting here all soggy. So he wrestled the thick sweater off, and the thin one, and the T-shirt, and draped them as best he could in the vicinity of his little fire. Boots off. Socks, wrung out, then suspended on a branch that wasn't yet needed for the fire. Oh, what the hell, off with his jeans too. Even his underpants were wet. He wrapped himself in his emergency blanket, put his arms through the waterproof's sleeves for good measure, and hoped for the best.
Huddled as close to the fire as he dared sit, Lance ate his oat bar and thought morosely that he had to face it, he might as well go home. It might not be pissing with rain in his own dimensions. The disappointment was almost painful. There was a golden dragon somewhere in this world, and he was stuck in a stupid cave trying to dry his stupid clothes and what a waste.
Something important burgeoned in his brain, a puzzle, a problem, a—*WHAT?* A moment later the rain in front of the cave stopped, and the golden dragon, with its wings outstretched against the downpour like a marquee, landed and glared at him. There was an enormous sense of surprise in Lance's head, now.
Feeling incredibly stupid in his blanket and jacket, Lance stood awkwardly and bowed to the dragon. Its great head tilted and snaked about on that long, sinuous neck, obviously examining him. The *CURIOSITY* was back, but underlaid this time with a sense of something else, possessiveness? It was hard to put the dragon's emotions into human terms, Lance found, particularly since it filled his head so very full, like a party balloon blown up to bursting point.
The dragon's gaze was caught by the garments spread around the fire and it did a visible double take which, in less intimidating circumstances, would have been funny.
*PEELED!?* it stated/questioned, a mixture of astonishment and comprehension.
"Uh, no," Lance said, "not—these are clothes. See, I can put them on—" he picked up his jeans and held them in front of him, but that didn't seem to be helpful, so he dropped them and unzipped the waterproof jacket, took it off, then put it back on again. The blanket fell to the ground as though to add emphasis to the demonstration. The dragon watched in unmistakable surprise, and seemed particularly interested in the unzipping and zipping. To Lance's consternation it stretched one mighty leg towards him, and plainly attempted to unzip the jacket with one of its talons. "Okay, no, I don't think that's going to work," he said, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. He unzipped again, very slowly, demonstrating how his fingers grasped and pulled down the little tab.
The dragon stuck a talon through the waterproof at thigh level—eek!—and Lance wriggled out of the jacket. If it wanted a closer look at his 'skin', he wasn't going to argue.
The dragon poked at the fallen jacket for a few minutes, and Lance's head was filled with its frustration, irritation and bafflement. Then the dragon's head whipped back to Lance, and it examined his hand very closely. He demonstrated how he could articulate each finger, and press each in turn against his thumb. Next it peered at his entire body, and *PUZZLED* took over again. Was his lack of wings the problem? Suddenly it opened its great mouth and shot a stream of fire towards the diminished pile of leaves at the back of the cave.
There was now a pile of ash at the back of the cave. "Okay," Lance said, breathing carefully. Perhaps the dragon wondered how he, a mere human, had made fire. He opened the backpack—the dragon watched with riveted attention—got out the box of matches and struck one. The dragon reared back *HOW*WHAT*HOW* from the tiny flame, and again, Lance thought he'd probably laugh at the memory, when his head didn't hurt quite so much. He dropped the match onto the fire.
"My clothes were wet," he said, and tried to pantomime 'rain'. "I made fire to warm them, make them dry." He held his jeans up towards the flames and attempted to indicate how the heat was supposed to help.
The dragon stared at Lance, then at Lance's thick sweater, which the fire had totally failed to dry out. A snorting noise, and a stream of smoky breath directly onto the sweater. Which steamed, briefly.
"Uh. Thank you," Lance said, wide-eyed.
*SUPERIOR* was the best word for what the dragon was thinking now. He wasn't going to argue.
The dragon directed its hot breath at each garment (the T-shirt now bore scorch-marks, but it was most definitely dry) and Lance bowed and thanked the dragon again and hoped it understood. "Er, is it all right if I put my clothes back on?" There was only a vast self-satisfied smugness now, so he scrambled into his warmed clothing with enormous relief. "Uh, can I offer you—" he dived back into the backpack and pulled out the chocolate bar. The outer wrapper was soggy but the silver foil had protected the chocolate, and he picked it off carefully and rolled it into a tiny ball, then held the bar between finger and thumb and stretched his arm towards the dragon. It did not look impressed.
That didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. Lance broke off a chunk, ate it with exaggerated relish and offered it again.
Whatever was filling his head now, he didn't understand it at all, and he could only gape as the dragon blurred somehow, and seemed to collapse in on itself, and reformed, and then there was no dragon, there was a man. He was entirely naked, at least six inches taller than Lance, built like a god, and the most beautiful male Lance had ever seen. The air around him shimmered with a golden glow, almost as though his human shape could not contain all the heat and brightness of the dragon. The dragon-man looked at his own right hand, flexed his fingers, and reached for the chocolate.
He sniffed, tasted, and *PLEASURE* wolfed down the entire bar.
The dragon-man was fascinated by his own hands. He spent some time zipping and unzipping the waterproof, and groped for the matchbox. The first match burned down to his fingertips and there was an instant of *PAIN*FIRE*IRRITATION*. Lance lit another match and blew it out, and *AMUSED* saw his example copied until every match in the box was gone. The dragon-man didn't seem able to believe the box was truly empty, and Lance got a distinct impression of *ELSEWHERE* and that nauseous feeling as the dragon-man reached through for more matches, but he gave up at last and pitched the box into the fire.
Lance had had no idea a dragon could transform like this, and was charmed that he seemed to have inspired what must surely be its first attempt at becoming human. The pressure in his head had not lessened now that the dragon was in human form, but its—his—thoughts were not so powerfully focussed as he tried out this new body. He was stepping into the rain, now, and enjoying it, and Lance could feel the *PLEASURE* of water needling on skin, cool and regular.
The glorious sight of the dragon-man dripping with water was one Lance would treasure for quite a while. Just how much humanity did the dragon wish to experience, he wondered, because—never mind. But the dragon-man's genitalia were just as impressive as the rest of his physique, and it wasn't a crime to imagine these things, even if it would be reckless to the point of insanity to do anything about them. Haloed like an angel with his arms and face held up to the rain, or bent over to tumble the contents of the backpack to the ground, the view was very fine indeed.
Dragon-man rooted through every item he'd spilled. He sniffed and ate one of the sandwiches and tossed the other over his shoulder. The maps did not interest him until one of them, opened, caught against Lance's leaf bonfire and flared up, which the dragon-man found funny; but he spent some time puzzling over the little tin of first aid items, only to scatter them in mild annoyance when he eventually got it open. The emergency flare rolled aside and was ignored, for which Lance was profoundly thankful. The snowglobe, though, was not ignored. The dragon-man went rigid as he picked it up, and *MINE* warred with *ANGER* as he threw it to the ground. Lance cried out, and the snowglobe rolled drunkenly into the fire. He was utterly bewildered, and his head hurt worse than ever.
"It's just, it was a present," he tried to explain, but being human-shaped didn't seem to have given the dragon language, and though its thoughts filled his head, he had no sense that it understood anything in his mind. Or was interested.
*MINE*. It throbbed in his head. He saw an image of himself, *SMALL*HELPLESS*, quite disorienting; the dragon-man cocked his head, looking at Lance. In the dragon's mind, Lance was naked, the image so compelling he had to touch his arms and thighs, yes, he was still clothed, but in the dragon's mind inside his head Lance was naked. Was it remembering how it had inspected him? *MINE* Talons, raking through clothing, tearing it away. An image of things to come. Lance on the ground as the dragon man pulled and poked at his body, tugged at his limbs, rolled him, tested his fingers in the fire. It was planning, gloating, and if it knew, it didn't care that Lance could sense what it intended. What Lance knew didn't matter.
The dragon-man stood between Lance and the rain, and thought terrible thoughts. *PLEASURE*, an image of himself thrusting into Lance, *WANT*ANTICIPATION*TAKE*. Fear flooded the squeezed edges of Lance's mind that the dragon did not occupy, and the dragon's thoughts beat on relentlessly, so primal now that Lance couldn't interpret their meaning in words, but the images of himself impaled, his face pressed into the cave's brown floor, his fingers snapped and broken one by one, *FUNNY*, his eyeballs plucked and tasted, *MINE*, that monstrous possessiveness and disregard for anything Lance might want, might be. His own helplessness was bitter in his mouth and his own thoughts fought for space at the edges of his mind. He was its plaything, he understood that now, it would do as it pleased with him. The appalling images moved on, Lance was spitted now on a great spike of flame, blistering, burning, blackening from the inside and screaming as he was consumed. *MIRTH* His skin crisped. Each bone crackled as it was snapped. Acid burned in his throat but he couldn't taste it for the overwhelming, appetising smell of his own cooked flesh.
Help, Lance's mind begged, help! And it echoed inside his skull because he could not send a message and there was nobody to hear it anyway, not here in dragon country. He shouted it aloud, *AMUSED*, and would have run but there was nowhere to run, not from a dragon, and his legs were liquid and couldn't hold him up let alone run anywhere and in his mind he was incinerated on a phallus of flame and the dragon was laughing with delight.
The dragon-man stepped towards him.
There was a thunderclap, a great bellow, *MINE!* and Lance sobbed with the fear and pain in his head and fell to his knees, and through the rain came a vast black shape glittering like jet. The dragon-man shrieked *RAGE* and rose up to meet it, golden and winged, and two dragons fought in the sky, snarling like tornadoes and slashing at one another with finger-long claws. Lance's head was full of molten *WRATH* and his own terror, he could hardly breathe, and the dragons would tear him apart and rape and burn him to death, and then there was a furious defeated sound that reverberated in his head and ears, and the golden dragon flew away and elsewhere into a pinpoint of oblivion. The triumphant black dragon screeched its defiance and landed in front of the cave, and Lance had nowhere to go.
His mind gave up, and he fainted.
This weekend he had a wind-up pocket light, and matches, and extra food and water so that he could stay longer. The tram driver looked at him with world-weary eyes as he sprang aboard, but Lance did not care that he was grinning like a lunatic. He was going to dragon country. He bounded off the tram at the end of the line, and sang uninhibitedly as he strode through the woods.
It was easier getting through the dimensions now he knew he could do it. Lance set out confidently, and felt the snap of understanding as he looked at the snowglobe and imagined JC's sculptures. He almost thought he could do it with his eyes open, but decided not to try, not this time, anyway. He was too eager to get there.
He headed straight for the valley with the cave, determined to get inside and see what might be there. It was such a very dragonish place. When he reached it, he forced himself to sit at the entrance and eat an oat bar before he got the new pocket light out, wound it a couple of times just to be sure, and headed into the tunnel with its light playing on the ground in front of him.
It opened out into a cave of wonders. At first, Lance thought the lumps were natural formations, and wondered that the dragon had not cleared and flattened this cavern as it had cleared the passage-way; but the lumps glittered in the light's pale beam, and as he got closer he realised that this was not mere rock, this was shaped and made and—this was treasure! Dragon treasure! Metallic gleams of chains, coins, bracelets. Silver, he thought, but perhaps that was the pocket light leaching the colour out of the metal, since everyone knew dragons hoarded gold. There were gems, sparkling darkly. Sapphires, perhaps, and clusters of diamonds on rings and brooches, and great fiery opals in cleaved rock nuggets. A dragon's hoard. Real.
Amazed, Lance stared at the heaped treasures, noticing more and more details—strange, some of them, for now that he looked more carefully he could see that not everything was precious, at least, not by his standards. There were scraps of worked metal which might have come from household machinery—bits of piping, cable, cogs, and was that a hubcap? Over there were what looked oddly like—what were, in fact—old gramophone records, 78s, and the elegant cone of an ancient player, though it was draped with a cascade of gemstones and an evening purse in an Art Deco style was propped against it. A stack of leather-bound books with a curved, jewel-crusted dagger and a Minnie Mouse alarm clock on top. Altogether a much more idiosyncratic hoard than Lance would ever have expected, after the tales of treasure chests and purloined crowns he'd been reading all his life. What kind of dragon would steal these things from the world where humans made them? Why would it crave such stuff?
If it comes back and finds me here, I can ask it, Lance thought. If it doesn't decide it's hungry.
It would be prudent to retreat. But he couldn't, quite, bear to leave this incredible find without something to remind himself, when he got back to his own world, that he had truly found it. There was a small object close to his feet, a ring, bands of twined metal, too large for his ring finger but he slipped it onto his middle finger and it stayed. It was probably very, very stupid to steal something from a dragon's hoard, if all the legends of avariciousness were true, but… none of the legends had mentioned that a dragon might see value in an ancient black telephone, or, or an ostrich feather fan. Then again, it didn't feel entirely right to take something, but perhaps if he offered something in exchange? Would a bar of chocolate do? Lance dug into his backpack and then thought, no, and opened the side pocket where he kept the compass. A shiny, functional thing. The dragon would probably appreciate it, he thought. It was silver, with an elegant pattern and a handsome chain. He'd never needed the compass, only used it to prove to himself that he knew how; he could navigate perfectly well by the sun, and actually, even when it rained, his sense of direction was pretty reliable. Yes, the dragon should have it. Lance laid the compass carefully next to a shimmering necklace, to make it clear to the dragon that he hadn't stolen anything really valuable.
He retreated back the way he'd come, blinking as he emerged into the open air. It must be about noon, and the world seemed very bright.
On the whole, it might be better not to be in the immediate vicinity if the owner of the hoard came back, he decided, and climbed back up to the crest of hills surrounding the dragon valley. Over yonder was where he'd seen the glorious golden dragon. Would it be insane to try to get closer?
Yes, probably. But he was going to.
He set off determinedly down the slope. The hills the dragon had been spiralling over were higher than the ones surrounding the valley with the cave. It was a pity he couldn't walk across the gap, that he'd have to go down and then up. If he knew more about how to move through the dimensions—oh well. One thing at a time. He'd get up that next hill, and then eat.
He was hot and sweaty by the time he achieved his goal, and took off his top layer. Looking back, he didn't seem to have come so very far, but his legs assured him that the distant woods where he'd emerged into dragon country were a long way off. He probably shouldn't go any further, but he shouldn't need to. This was a great vantage point for dragon-spotting. He shivered, suddenly cold.
*CURIOSITY* filled his head, a huge and foreign curiosity which was certainly, certainly coming from someone, something—he looked around and didn't see any—oh, oh, the shadow on the ground around him was… He looked up.
The golden dragon was hovering high above, and its attention was plainly focussed on him. There was puzzlement in its thoughts, surprise, a hint of disapproval at his bizarre stunted shape—*NO WINGS?*—but mostly there was a relentless pressure of *CURIOSITY*.
Lance scrambled to his feet. "Hello?" he said, and bowed uncertainly.
*SURPRISE*
The dragon wafted gently down. It was enormous. Its head was as long, Lance reckoned, as he himself was tall. Its wings, spread to gentle its descent, would have done a Napoleonic battleship credit, and one of its mighty talons could eviscerate him easily.
It did not seem to be considering evisceration. It seemed baffled, not at all sure what this puny earthbound creature might be. Its huge head snaked forward, and eyes like molten cauldrons surveyed him unfathomably. For all that he'd imagined this moment, Lance had no idea what to do. He wasn't sure he could do anything—his legs seemed unwilling to support him, and he honestly didn't think he could move. His head throbbed from the pressure of the dragon's thoughts.
The dragon examined him for a few moments longer, and then appeared to lose interest. *SMALL*, it thought, and something that felt like *UNIMPORTANT* but might have been *SAVE FOR LATER*, and it reared back, bunched its mighty hind legs and took off into the sky. Lance's legs gave up the struggle and he collapsed to the ground, and his mind was filled with *FLY*JOY*POWER* as the dragon spiralled up into the azure sky. He had never seen anything so magnificent. He watched it and felt its entirely unhuman pleasure pounding like distant kettledrums in his head, and his heart hurt with delight.
And then it was gone. Lance had no idea how long he'd watched the dragon fly—not long enough—but it was gone, and time was still passing, and he must go home. He was cold, he realised, and hurried to put his jacket on. The sky was fading, perhaps because there was no longer a dragon in it, but he didn't want to spend the night here, he wanted a hot bath and his comfortable bed and he wanted, he really, really wanted to be able to tell somebody, anybody, that he had seen a dragon, that he'd had a, well, not exactly a conversation with a dragon, but communication. If only there was someone he could tell.
Adam Lambert might believe him, but Adam exploited dragons for profit, he would want to know where the dragon was, so he could track it and take its skin when it shed. Although now that Lance had seen a dragon—had seen a dragon—close up, he couldn't imagine how one human being could deal with the skin of an entire dragon. Maybe it got packed in the same place that the baby dragonlet in the snowglobe did. Did Adam Lambert own a Mary Poppins carpet bag?
He laughed for joy as he ran down the hill.
That night, Lance's dreams were filled with dragons and treasure and flying over mountains.
*
Adam Lambert should not be allowed to ride a motorcycle. Or wear leather. Lance watched him settle the heavy machine and stride towards the house, and opened the door before Adam had a chance to knock.
"Nice," Adam remarked, flicking his head at the decorative knocker, which was cast iron in the shape of a rather portly wyvern.
"Come on in." Adam followed him into the kitchen, and set his leather jacket—regular leather, although he was wearing the dragon-hide boots—over the back of one of the chairs. "Er, do you have a problem with dogs?" Lance should have asked about this before inviting Adam to his home, but it had only just occurred to him.
"Dogs? A problem?"
"You're not afraid of them, or anything?"
"No. Should I be?"
"No, no, they're good dogs, but you know, some people don't like dogs, if they never grew up around dogs, or, um, whatever. Come on through to the living room and I'll let them in."
The dogs were outside, enjoying themselves as usual, and were very excited to be summoned into the house. The four of them scrambled through the open glass door and then stopped dead, sniffing and cocking their heads like a synchronised canine dance troupe. Weird. "This is Lily," he said. "She's a flirt. Go on, Lily, say hello." The little mongrel walked forward with her tail slowly waving, and Adam dropped to his knees.
"Hi, Lily!" he crooned, and she bounced up to him and made overtures, and ended up with her front paws on his chest, licking his chin while he giggled. Then Foster trotted forward and nosed for attention, and Dingo followed, and Jackson, elderly, grouchy and somewhat arthritic, clicked his way across the hardwood floor, demanded to be stroked, and settled himself at Adam's knee. Adam looked enchanted with all this doggy attention, and petting the beasts seemed to come very naturally to him. "They're adorable," he announced. Lance had to agree.
"You don't have to stay on the floor with them," Lance said, smiling, and after a few minutes more of love, Adam extricated himself and sat on the couch, facing the big glass doors and the expanse of back yard. The dogs arranged themselves on the floor at his feet, and Lance went back to the kitchen for some iced tea. The dogs' obvious trust in Adam was a huge point in Adam's favour, and Lance found himself yet again revisiting Joey's arguments for why it would be good for Lance to have a boyfriend with a solid shield.
"Four dogs!" Adam said as he accepted his drink, and sounded almost envious.
"It works out easier than having just one, because they keep each other busy while I'm out at work." He let them out every morning, and opened up the odd little extension down the side of the house, where their crates and water dishes and beanbags and an ancient couch gave them a comfortable retreat in case of rain or weariness. Jackson spent a lot of time snoozing in there. "That's why I live right out here, it's not so handy for work and seeing friends, but it had the biggest back yard of anywhere I looked at. I only had the three boys when I got this place, but it was perfect."
"And three dogs just wasn't enough," Adam said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"I was helping out at a dog shelter—the one where I got Dingo and Foster, actually—and they were trying to get someone to adopt Lily, and I, well. Kinda couldn't resist."
"I'm not surprised." Adam bent down to stroke Lily's absurd curls. "She's such a cutie."
"Did you have a pet dog when you were a kid?"
Adam looked startled. "No, no pets. I don't think I ever thought about it."
"I can recommend a good shelter, if you want to get one."
"I can't. At least—I think I might be spending quite a bit of time away, in the spring. Simon's talking about going national when the record comes out, so." He looked quite regretful. "It must be nice to come home to this little army."
"Yeah." The dogs were always purely happy to see him, exuding thoughts he interpreted as lovelovelovemasterlove and mastergivefoodnowkindmaster and nicemastermorepettings, simple, uncomplicated emotions that infallibly made him feel better. "I'm just going to check on the food, excuse me." As he left the room, Adam was making a fuss of Foster.
They herded the dogs back outside and sat down to a meal of roast chicken which Lance was relieved to find had worked perfectly. Adam was impressed that Lance could cook, and this involved an explanation about Lance's family and how his Mama and Nana had taught him to bake, and how easy roasting a dinner was by comparison to making pastry or a perfectly risen sponge cake. They were eating the apple pie when Adam's right hand darted out to grab Lance's left.
"You have—I don't think I saw you wear jewellery before."
Lance knew an impulse to hide his hand, and the purloined ring, but it was too late for that. "Yeah, this is new."
"It's pretty." Adam was staring very intently at the ring, and he hadn't let go Lance's hand, which was unsettling in a mostly good way. "It looks, what's the word, vintage? Is that the word for it, when it's jewellery? Where did you find it? I love finding new places to shop."
"It's… it wasn't a shop, it was kind of a barter thing." It was no good. If he was going to try this, if there was to be any chance of a relationship here, he'd have to be honest and hope Adam deserved his trust. "Actually, uh. Adam, did you ever, did you ever find a dragon's cave?"
Adam looked at him intently. "Are you saying, you did?"
"Yes. I found the dragon's hoard. And I wanted—I took this because I had to have something to prove to myself that I really found it. So I took it. I guess maybe that wasn't very smart. I mean, a dragon's hoard, you know? Dragon treasure!"
Adam considered. "A dragon usually holds on tight to its treasure," he said.
"So I might be in trouble, if I go back? I did leave it something in exchange," Lance said.
"You did?"
"My compass. My mother will be so mad if she ever finds out, because it was her grandpa's compass, and I think it was silver, but it seemed like, I couldn't take something and not, um, leave something in exchange. I mean, I didn't want to just steal it."
Adam had a very strange expression on his face. "I think," he said after a moment, "that's probably why you were able to take the ring at all. If you left a gift, something meaningful and valuable, then it would be okay."
"I don't even know for sure if that dragon is still there," Lance said. It was a relief to know that someone with a lot more dragon expertise than himself thought it had been a good idea to offer something in exchange for the ring. "I mean, it could have died. It wasn't, like, lying on top of its treasures like in pictures."
"Do you think it died?"
"No. I think it…" Lance laughed, still incredulous. "I think it talked to me. I mean, I think I met it."
"You met it?"
"Not in the cave, but close by. It was—it was—I can't even explain. It was so beautiful. A golden dragon. I never realised how big they were. I saw it before, a week ago, when I took the snowglobe with me and got all the way in, but yesterday it saw me."
"Huh." Adam's face was a study in emotions, and Lance couldn't read them. He had to guess.
"Are you jealous?" he said. Because damn, if Adam had met a dragon and Lance hadn't, he'd be totally consumed with envy.
"Yeah," Adam said eventually. "I am jealous. But don't worry about it. Just—be careful, you know?"
"I've been looking for years, and I didn't know how to get there, and I thought if I could just see one, just to know the dragons weren't all gone, you know, I thought that would be enough, but now I actually saw one and I just, I just, it's so incredible. I'm going to go back." Not that it had been entirely a pleasure, being overwhelmed by the dragon's relentless thoughts, but hell. He could deal with that.
"The dragons certainly aren't gone," Adam said. "Although most people can't find them. But I mean it, Lance. Be careful."
"I will." He intended to.
"That pie was really good," Adam said, and Lance was grateful for the change of subject. "I shouldn't, but, if there's more…?" So they had more pie, and talked of other things, of music and concerts and visual arts, and Chris Kirkpatrick's new job, which made Adam laugh, and the conversation wended its way to JC and his peculiar sculptures and how they'd been helpful in getting Lance to understand the snowglobe, and Adam said he must be sure to see JC's exhibition, maybe they could go together? Lance said it was a date, and if JC's exhibition wasn't going to be open until Adam was away touring, he'd arrange for them to visit JC beforehand so that Adam could see the wonderful weirdness of JC for himself.
Eventually, after coffee and a session in the yard playing toss-the-ring and tug-of-war with the dogs, it was time for Adam to leave.
They went back into the kitchen to retrieve his jacket. He slid it on, hesitated, and stepped closer to Lance. "May I kiss you?"
Lance grinned. "You are very sweet."
"I'm very smitten," Adam said, ruefully.
"I don't know why," Lance said, suddenly sorry. He'd been curt, and rude, and made all kinds of assumptions. "I haven't—I've been—I haven't done anything to deserve it."
Adam's expression was unfathomable, and Lance was oddly grateful not to be able to hear all of Adam's thoughts right now. He wasn't sure he was ready for them.
"You don't even know," Adam said. "I… really want to kiss you."
"Please do," said Lance, and slid into Adam's ready embrace. And, oh, yes, it was wonderful.
*
Adam was busy with his recording sessions and having his photograph taken on location and all kinds of showbusiness business, so they had no chance for anything more than a couple of phone calls. Lance wasn't worried. There was no need to hurry things. Adam was interested, Lance was interested, they could take their time. He had dragons to discover.
Mid-way through the week, Lisa waved a newspaper at him excitedly as he walked through the door, and pointed out a brief item about how noted singer Justin Timberlake had been seen taking artist Britney Spears out for dinner, and afterwards dancing. "Aww," he said, pleased for her.
He might have thought it would be less exciting going dragon-hunting when he'd already seen—met—a dragon, but as Lance made his sandwiches and put everything into his backpack, he felt just as much anticipation as he had before. More, because he knew now how incredible it could be.
It was unnerving, yes, and he remembered Adam's warning to take care, but he'd not felt any malice in the dragon, last week. If anything it was indifferent to him, which was, to his own surprise, a relief. Anyway, he would take care, he always did.
It was a dull day today, definitely autumn, grey sky and chilly air. As Lance walked through the woods it began to rain, very fine rain, hardly noticeable at all. Lance considered putting on his waterproof, but it would make him hot and sticky, and he'd be fine once he got into dragon country. It was warmer there, and he'd never seen a cloud in the sky.
In fact, why not make the transition now? He'd been in the habit of walking up into the hills for so long now, but there could be no reason to be in a particular spot in order to move through the dimensions. He could probably do it from his own back yard. Maybe next week. Lance pulled out the snowglobe, thought of too many right angles and a golden dragon in the sky, closed his eyes, and stepped through.
"Argh!" It was raining, it was bucketing, great sheets of water falling on him. Lance was soaking wet in seconds, before he could even pick up the backpack. The snowglobe's protective towel was already a sodden rag, and Lance was so wet that his waterproof jacket would be too little and way, way too late. He gasped under the downpour, and decided to make for the cave. At least that way he wouldn't drown! He tucked the wet towel through one of the backpack's loops, put the snowglobe carefully inside, and hoisted it onto his shoulders. At least his lunch was properly wrapped.
He shielded his eyes and looked ahead, but to his surprise the bowl of hills surrounding the valley where he'd found the dragon's hoard was away to the west, and more distant than he'd expected. He seemed to have entered dragon country a few miles from his usual spot, closer to the hills where he'd met the golden dragon. Which would have been great, if he hadn't needed to shelter from the rain.
Well, standing here wouldn't help. There might be another cave. Or an overhang, or something. Lance started to move, hunched pointlessly against the downpour.
Miraculously, he found his overhang after just ten minutes. There seemed to be a slippage in the hillside, a brown shadow under the green, and it did provide shelter—actually more shelter than he'd anticipated, seeing it through the rain, for it proved to be a cave. Just a small one, though, and half full of drifted leaves, no tunnel here to lead to a dragon's hoard. He'd never heard of a dragon having more than one treasure hoard anyway. As wet as if he'd stumbled into a swimming pool, Lance sat with his back against the bare clay, his dripping pack beside him. At least there was no wind. A curtain of water fell over the cave mouth, several feet away, but the water stayed over there and he stayed well clear of it.
And began to shiver. Really, he could not be more wet. And no prospect of drying out… unless… the leaves seemed to be dry. In fact, there were quite a few twigs and bits of branch amongst the heap. There must have been strong east winds a few days ago, he concluded, and the autumn trees had sacrificed worthwhile substance here. If his matches had stayed dry…
They had, thanks to his long habit of packing everything in plastic bags. Shaking a little with cold, Lance piled several twigs into a likely fire and put a match to them. The flame caught, and he fed it with handfuls from the pile. He soon discovered a substantial branch, and set to stamping it into manageable pieces and adding them to his fire.
The exertion warmed him a little, but his clothes were clammy on his skin. He could almost hear his grandmother scolding him to get out of those wet things, and indeed, there was no sense sitting here all soggy. So he wrestled the thick sweater off, and the thin one, and the T-shirt, and draped them as best he could in the vicinity of his little fire. Boots off. Socks, wrung out, then suspended on a branch that wasn't yet needed for the fire. Oh, what the hell, off with his jeans too. Even his underpants were wet. He wrapped himself in his emergency blanket, put his arms through the waterproof's sleeves for good measure, and hoped for the best.
Huddled as close to the fire as he dared sit, Lance ate his oat bar and thought morosely that he had to face it, he might as well go home. It might not be pissing with rain in his own dimensions. The disappointment was almost painful. There was a golden dragon somewhere in this world, and he was stuck in a stupid cave trying to dry his stupid clothes and what a waste.
Something important burgeoned in his brain, a puzzle, a problem, a—*WHAT?* A moment later the rain in front of the cave stopped, and the golden dragon, with its wings outstretched against the downpour like a marquee, landed and glared at him. There was an enormous sense of surprise in Lance's head, now.
Feeling incredibly stupid in his blanket and jacket, Lance stood awkwardly and bowed to the dragon. Its great head tilted and snaked about on that long, sinuous neck, obviously examining him. The *CURIOSITY* was back, but underlaid this time with a sense of something else, possessiveness? It was hard to put the dragon's emotions into human terms, Lance found, particularly since it filled his head so very full, like a party balloon blown up to bursting point.
The dragon's gaze was caught by the garments spread around the fire and it did a visible double take which, in less intimidating circumstances, would have been funny.
*PEELED!?* it stated/questioned, a mixture of astonishment and comprehension.
"Uh, no," Lance said, "not—these are clothes. See, I can put them on—" he picked up his jeans and held them in front of him, but that didn't seem to be helpful, so he dropped them and unzipped the waterproof jacket, took it off, then put it back on again. The blanket fell to the ground as though to add emphasis to the demonstration. The dragon watched in unmistakable surprise, and seemed particularly interested in the unzipping and zipping. To Lance's consternation it stretched one mighty leg towards him, and plainly attempted to unzip the jacket with one of its talons. "Okay, no, I don't think that's going to work," he said, trying not to sound as nervous as he felt. He unzipped again, very slowly, demonstrating how his fingers grasped and pulled down the little tab.
The dragon stuck a talon through the waterproof at thigh level—eek!—and Lance wriggled out of the jacket. If it wanted a closer look at his 'skin', he wasn't going to argue.
The dragon poked at the fallen jacket for a few minutes, and Lance's head was filled with its frustration, irritation and bafflement. Then the dragon's head whipped back to Lance, and it examined his hand very closely. He demonstrated how he could articulate each finger, and press each in turn against his thumb. Next it peered at his entire body, and *PUZZLED* took over again. Was his lack of wings the problem? Suddenly it opened its great mouth and shot a stream of fire towards the diminished pile of leaves at the back of the cave.
There was now a pile of ash at the back of the cave. "Okay," Lance said, breathing carefully. Perhaps the dragon wondered how he, a mere human, had made fire. He opened the backpack—the dragon watched with riveted attention—got out the box of matches and struck one. The dragon reared back *HOW*WHAT*HOW* from the tiny flame, and again, Lance thought he'd probably laugh at the memory, when his head didn't hurt quite so much. He dropped the match onto the fire.
"My clothes were wet," he said, and tried to pantomime 'rain'. "I made fire to warm them, make them dry." He held his jeans up towards the flames and attempted to indicate how the heat was supposed to help.
The dragon stared at Lance, then at Lance's thick sweater, which the fire had totally failed to dry out. A snorting noise, and a stream of smoky breath directly onto the sweater. Which steamed, briefly.
"Uh. Thank you," Lance said, wide-eyed.
*SUPERIOR* was the best word for what the dragon was thinking now. He wasn't going to argue.
The dragon directed its hot breath at each garment (the T-shirt now bore scorch-marks, but it was most definitely dry) and Lance bowed and thanked the dragon again and hoped it understood. "Er, is it all right if I put my clothes back on?" There was only a vast self-satisfied smugness now, so he scrambled into his warmed clothing with enormous relief. "Uh, can I offer you—" he dived back into the backpack and pulled out the chocolate bar. The outer wrapper was soggy but the silver foil had protected the chocolate, and he picked it off carefully and rolled it into a tiny ball, then held the bar between finger and thumb and stretched his arm towards the dragon. It did not look impressed.
That didn't seem to be getting him anywhere. Lance broke off a chunk, ate it with exaggerated relish and offered it again.
Whatever was filling his head now, he didn't understand it at all, and he could only gape as the dragon blurred somehow, and seemed to collapse in on itself, and reformed, and then there was no dragon, there was a man. He was entirely naked, at least six inches taller than Lance, built like a god, and the most beautiful male Lance had ever seen. The air around him shimmered with a golden glow, almost as though his human shape could not contain all the heat and brightness of the dragon. The dragon-man looked at his own right hand, flexed his fingers, and reached for the chocolate.
He sniffed, tasted, and *PLEASURE* wolfed down the entire bar.
The dragon-man was fascinated by his own hands. He spent some time zipping and unzipping the waterproof, and groped for the matchbox. The first match burned down to his fingertips and there was an instant of *PAIN*FIRE*IRRITATION*. Lance lit another match and blew it out, and *AMUSED* saw his example copied until every match in the box was gone. The dragon-man didn't seem able to believe the box was truly empty, and Lance got a distinct impression of *ELSEWHERE* and that nauseous feeling as the dragon-man reached through for more matches, but he gave up at last and pitched the box into the fire.
Lance had had no idea a dragon could transform like this, and was charmed that he seemed to have inspired what must surely be its first attempt at becoming human. The pressure in his head had not lessened now that the dragon was in human form, but its—his—thoughts were not so powerfully focussed as he tried out this new body. He was stepping into the rain, now, and enjoying it, and Lance could feel the *PLEASURE* of water needling on skin, cool and regular.
The glorious sight of the dragon-man dripping with water was one Lance would treasure for quite a while. Just how much humanity did the dragon wish to experience, he wondered, because—never mind. But the dragon-man's genitalia were just as impressive as the rest of his physique, and it wasn't a crime to imagine these things, even if it would be reckless to the point of insanity to do anything about them. Haloed like an angel with his arms and face held up to the rain, or bent over to tumble the contents of the backpack to the ground, the view was very fine indeed.
Dragon-man rooted through every item he'd spilled. He sniffed and ate one of the sandwiches and tossed the other over his shoulder. The maps did not interest him until one of them, opened, caught against Lance's leaf bonfire and flared up, which the dragon-man found funny; but he spent some time puzzling over the little tin of first aid items, only to scatter them in mild annoyance when he eventually got it open. The emergency flare rolled aside and was ignored, for which Lance was profoundly thankful. The snowglobe, though, was not ignored. The dragon-man went rigid as he picked it up, and *MINE* warred with *ANGER* as he threw it to the ground. Lance cried out, and the snowglobe rolled drunkenly into the fire. He was utterly bewildered, and his head hurt worse than ever.
"It's just, it was a present," he tried to explain, but being human-shaped didn't seem to have given the dragon language, and though its thoughts filled his head, he had no sense that it understood anything in his mind. Or was interested.
*MINE*. It throbbed in his head. He saw an image of himself, *SMALL*HELPLESS*, quite disorienting; the dragon-man cocked his head, looking at Lance. In the dragon's mind, Lance was naked, the image so compelling he had to touch his arms and thighs, yes, he was still clothed, but in the dragon's mind inside his head Lance was naked. Was it remembering how it had inspected him? *MINE* Talons, raking through clothing, tearing it away. An image of things to come. Lance on the ground as the dragon man pulled and poked at his body, tugged at his limbs, rolled him, tested his fingers in the fire. It was planning, gloating, and if it knew, it didn't care that Lance could sense what it intended. What Lance knew didn't matter.
The dragon-man stood between Lance and the rain, and thought terrible thoughts. *PLEASURE*, an image of himself thrusting into Lance, *WANT*ANTICIPATION*TAKE*. Fear flooded the squeezed edges of Lance's mind that the dragon did not occupy, and the dragon's thoughts beat on relentlessly, so primal now that Lance couldn't interpret their meaning in words, but the images of himself impaled, his face pressed into the cave's brown floor, his fingers snapped and broken one by one, *FUNNY*, his eyeballs plucked and tasted, *MINE*, that monstrous possessiveness and disregard for anything Lance might want, might be. His own helplessness was bitter in his mouth and his own thoughts fought for space at the edges of his mind. He was its plaything, he understood that now, it would do as it pleased with him. The appalling images moved on, Lance was spitted now on a great spike of flame, blistering, burning, blackening from the inside and screaming as he was consumed. *MIRTH* His skin crisped. Each bone crackled as it was snapped. Acid burned in his throat but he couldn't taste it for the overwhelming, appetising smell of his own cooked flesh.
Help, Lance's mind begged, help! And it echoed inside his skull because he could not send a message and there was nobody to hear it anyway, not here in dragon country. He shouted it aloud, *AMUSED*, and would have run but there was nowhere to run, not from a dragon, and his legs were liquid and couldn't hold him up let alone run anywhere and in his mind he was incinerated on a phallus of flame and the dragon was laughing with delight.
The dragon-man stepped towards him.
There was a thunderclap, a great bellow, *MINE!* and Lance sobbed with the fear and pain in his head and fell to his knees, and through the rain came a vast black shape glittering like jet. The dragon-man shrieked *RAGE* and rose up to meet it, golden and winged, and two dragons fought in the sky, snarling like tornadoes and slashing at one another with finger-long claws. Lance's head was full of molten *WRATH* and his own terror, he could hardly breathe, and the dragons would tear him apart and rape and burn him to death, and then there was a furious defeated sound that reverberated in his head and ears, and the golden dragon flew away and elsewhere into a pinpoint of oblivion. The triumphant black dragon screeched its defiance and landed in front of the cave, and Lance had nowhere to go.
His mind gave up, and he fainted.