What I Don’t See

Or: How I avoided a shortcut, made a smol dragon happy, and got a (pleasant) surprise.

From The Amazing Catwoman:

When you work for someone like Gwyneth, you have to accept that because her adoptive Sidhe father once told her Princesses of Faerie do not ever let their feet touch the ground, she is unlikely ever to visit the questionable pub where the person who bred the little dragon she would now like to adopt does business. So it becomes your job. Of course, it does have its perqs, as you can see from the photo here. This little graphite dragon was passed over by other buyers, so Cab sent her home with me after our second or third meeting. I named her Nyx. She hasn’t seen Nyx yet, but I’ll introduce them at some point. After I have procured her one of her own.

When I think about it, I recognise that her life has similar trials to my own; she just walks through it differently. I don’t see the point of taking the amount of time she does to put herself together, but then she probably doesn’t see the point of teaching magic sword drills to plebs, so we’re even in that respect. More people know who she is than know who I am, I guess. Is that a liability? Not sure I see that either.

‘Nyx, is everything OK? You seem jumpy’.

Truth was, she’d been agitated ever since we cut through that alley with all the fog. But Cab only works out of this one place, and I’d had a long day. Cutting through the alley saved us probably ten minutes. Of course, I don’t speak dragonchitter, and her telepathy isn’t advanced enough yet for her to send me more than impressions.

The impression I got was that she very much wanted to go back to our nice, warm hotel room above the city, event though she was also looking forward to seeing Cab, and she was hoping we might see some other dragons, although Cab rarely brings them in unless he is exchanging.

Tonight’s not the night, Cab said, over a couple of flavoured Belgian beers (my treat). New clutchlings aren’t ready yet; give it a few more days—you will be in Antwerp for a few more days, yes? And I’ll send a message to you when I’m ready. I think I’ll delivery this one’.

I thought about that for a few seconds. ‘I will certainly ask Her Majesty if she would welcome a personal delivery’, I said. I mean, I don’t see what the problem would be, but she’s sometimes prickly.

Then, we talked about Nyx and how well she’s doing over the rest of our beer, and I left the pub, already feeling like I was late for my dinner and my bed. I guess I’m getting old now: I just don’t see the fun in staying out all night and then going to work the next morning.

I stopped on my way back to the alley cut-through to re-button my boot. Seriously, the new Jangka shadow uniforms are very spiffy, but there are a lot of buttons. Her Spendthrift Majesty got them at the Chronicles & Legends faire when we were in Ippos a week or so ago, and I think she mostly wanted them because the Chronicles & Legends theme is “Creatures of the Night” and it amuses her to think of me and the rest of the Guard as creatures of the night, even though we’re out in the daytime too, when she needs us.

Yeah; I grumble to myself. Don’t you? If you said no, you’re lying.

That’s when Nyx started to chitter even more. ‘Did you hear something sweetie’? I asked. ‘I’m not hearing anything, and my hearing is pretty good, but I bet yours is better’.

I looked around, didn’t see anything, shrugged. But when I started for the alley, she dug her claws into the leather reinforced sleeves and actually made a move as if to nip my ear!

‘OK, OK’! I finally relented. ‘I will not take us through the back alley on the way home. But you’re the one who’s been thinking about a roaring fire and a nice dinner for the last hour and a half, so you remember that when we’re home thirty minutes later than we would have been’.

And, I shit you not, for the first time I heard it, clear as day, properly voiced, not too loud, not too soft.

Nyx’s voice, inside my head. At least we will get home if we go that way.

I know nothing ever surprises me any more.

That surprised me.