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The dragon was still weeping.
This made Tatelyn even angrier. "Stop it!"
Tatelyn yelled. "How dare you cry. I'm the one who should by crying! My
brother was killed by a copper dragon like you!"
The dragon's tears slowed and it glared at
Tatelyn. "I am not copper! I'm bronze! The very idea! Copper dragons
live in the mountains, and eat scorpions, and bre--"
"I don't care! You're a dragon!" Tatelyn sat
down on the rocks. "Oh, why did you have to come here? Why can't you all
just go away and leave us alone?"
"I would like nothing better!" the dragon
roared. "I hate it here!"
Tatelyn blinked, startled.
"I want to go back to the Dragon Isles," the
dragon continued, sitting up proudly. "I never wanted to come here, but
my parents made me."
Dragons had parents? The thought had never
occurred to Tatelyn, but of course, they must have. Where else would
little dragons come from? Then another thought crossed her mind, far
more chilling. What if the dragon's parents were around here as well?
"Wh-where are your parents?" Tatelyn asked,
trying to keep the question casual.
Tears welled up in the dragon's eyes again.
"My mother was wounded in a fight. Fighting to protect humans! To
protect you!"
"Don't cry again! You'll eat away the whole
ledge!" Tatelyn said. She couldn't get any farther away, so instead she
leaped up to rush toward the dragon, but she tripped and avoided falling
in a puddle of acidic tears by inches. "A dragon never protected me!
Never!"
"Then where did you get that necklace?" the
dragon asked, pointing a finger at Tatelyn's neck. Tatelyn looked down
and picked up the medallion of Mishakal. "Not that one," the dragon
snapped. "The jewel. The one that matches this!"
Simle flipped her head to the side and a
fine chain, previously tucked behind the dragon's wings, was a pendant
that matched the one Elistan had given to Tatelyn.
"Where did you get that?" Tatelyn rose to
her feet and took a step forward, her curiosity outweighing her fear of
the dragon for the moment.
"My mother brought it home after protecting
humans. You must have seen her if you have the other half."
The other half? Tatelyn looked closer and
realized that, indeed, then pendant would fit together with hers. She
shook her head slowly. "You are the first copper dragon I've seen
since--"
"How many times must I tell you, I am not
copper, I'm BRONZE!" With the last word, the dragon flapped her wings.
"You're going to kill us both!" Tatelyn
yelled. She edged away until her back was against the steep rock wall,
and glanced up. Only a gifted climber could scale that. Her rage at
being kidnapped, at dragons, at everything that has happened in the last
few days bubbled up again. "I don't care what metal you are!" she
shouted. "I didn't get this from a dragon. I haven't seen a
dragon other than you for a year! And, may I say, it wasn't a good
encounter then, either."
The dragon's raised wings dropped like a
yellow flower wilting in the sun. "You didn't see my mother?" it
whispered.
"No," Tatelyn said, feeling slightly sorry
for the dragon. She beat the feeling down. But curiosity about the
similar jewel won out over her anger for a moment. "May I look closer at
the necklace?"
The dragon said nothing, but merely nodded.
Tatelyn came closer, closer. What if it was a trap? But the dragon could
have killed her by now, she realized, if that was its purpose. It must
have been genuinely curious about her necklace.
Tatelyn took the dragon's pendant in one
hand. Like hers it was jagged along one edge. She took her pendant in
the other hand and fitted them together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
For a moment, she saw the completed star
that the two pieced made. Then there was a brilliant flash of
multicolored light and a roaring boom that shook rocks loose from the
cliff. Tatelyn let go of the dragon's necklace as the force from the
flash knocked her back into the scraggly tree, where she ducked for
cover. Simle tucked her head and wings in until she resembled a ball.
The two waited for the rain of rocks to
cease, then they peered at each other. That crafty dragon had done
something, using the matching jewel as bait.
"What did you do?" Tatelyn shouted. A stray
rock bounced down the cliff. Tatelyn ducked aside and it continued its
fall down the mountain. "What did you do?"
"What did I do?" The dragon stood,
craning her long neck to look at the new formations in te rock above
them. "What did you do?"
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