Kurkar

Born in the water, Kurkar was always drawn to the shore. She loved to lie at the edge of the waves, where the sand lay in ripples and layers, tail drifting on the foamy edge. Whether by the Shifting Expanse or the edge of the Windswept Plateau, it was all perfect for lying unseen, the color of the skittering grains around her.

The Ashfall Waste, though, was different. The sand there was black and sharp.

A dragon can only spend so much time in perfect, idle safety.
****

Kurkar regretted her impulse to explore the moment she stood up in the gritty shallows. Harpies spotted her pale fur and attacked, diving at her in such a frenzy that she lost track of where the sea was. Kurkar stumbled further onto land, the water in her fur dragging her down instead of buoying her up.

She was lucky. The harpies that attacked her weren't armed. Her waterlogged fur protected her enough that she could scramble under a rock, into a hollow where the sea hissed and swirled around her toes. There, she rested and waited. The flock waited, too, but eventually the sun began to set and they flew away, back to their nests.

The pale tundra tried to crawl out the way she crawled in, but at least one harpy hadn't given up. There was no escaping that way, and Kurkar was too hungry and tired to fight even one of the beasts. Instead, she crawled deeper through the clefts in the rock, the not-quite-caves carved by the swirling waters along the coast.

Somehow, she never found her way back to the water. The cracks always seemed to turn away. The black land rose beneath her feet, the carved pillars giving way to tumbled rocks and hollow tunnels that lead nowhere. Amid the broken shards and black grit, Kurkar found a place where the wind hissing through the porous rock sounded just a little like waves, and slept.

She awoke to the sweet smell of flowers. Kurkar opened her eyes to see bright red blossoms and green leaves sitting cheekily on top of the sponge-like rock. She ate them, happy for anything to fill her growling stomach, then realized that the wind was bringing more of the smell to her little hollow.

The young dragon crawled out of her hole and gasped. That flower had just been the first of a whole carpet of ruby blossoms, growing up towards the grumbling volcanoes in the distance. They seemed to sprout without need for dirt, right on the sharp rock itself.

She ate her fill, rolling in her breakfast and getting them tangled in her fur. Kurkar thought, if these plants can grow here, maybe I can, too. She faced the new day with new hope.
****

Kurkar's feet were quickly sore once she left the flowers. The rock underneath was hard and rough, with lots of little holes and sharp edges. She began to hop down a bit at a time, spreading her wings for balance. Then gliding. Hop, glide. Hop, glide.

She managed the courage to jump over a dark fissure in the rock next. Her wings were spread, her feet ready to land, but a gust of hot air burst from the rock and threw her far higher than she had expected. She didn't land again until she reached the bottom of the slope.

Her flanks heaved as she panted for air. She had been flying! She'd never flown in the water. It was so terrifying!

And also, kind of fun.

Maybe she could try again.
****

Kurkar swore she would never move again when the sun came up. Her feet were sore. Her sides were sore. Her wings ached as they'd never ached, ever, in all her life. Even her tail was sore. Flying had been fun. She just wished her muscles didn't ache. Even the thought of jumping down out of the tree she'd slept in made her shudder.

Instead, Kurkar carefully stretched against the spindly branches and scanned the horizon. She'd thought she'd seen a couple of dragons the day before, but always a long way off. If she could walk or fly as fast as she could swim, she would have found something by now, but picking her way across the ground was just so difficult, and the currents in the air weren't familiar like the ones in the water. She couldn't seem to get a sense for the sudden gusts from the ground.

At least there'd been no more harpies chasing her.

It took three looks to be sure of the movement. A cluster of purple flowers were traveling together, against the wind, slow but steady. That was interesting enough to lure her out of the tree, wincing all the way.

It was farther off than it'd seemed, up in the tree, but before Kurkar struggled too far, the flowers turned and started her way. As they left the hot, cracked stone and entered the stand of trees and scrub, Kurkar could finally see the snapper that wore them. The snapper was not only the color of stone, but had cracks of warm color on her that mimicked the glowing lava of a fresh flow. Only the flowers and her bright blue eyes had given her away.

The snapper hailed her. "You're a long way from the trade roads," she said.

"There are roads?" Kurkar gasped. She'd walked all this way without seeing them.

"You really must be lost!" the snapper said. "Come on, I have a little camp about a day's walk back. It's by one of the main roads."

"I- I'm not sure I can make a whole day," Kurkar said, trying not to whine. "I hurt so much."

"Well, then, you can walk with me a little, then I'll carry you a little," the snapper said. "It won't be so bad once your muscles warm up a bit. The best cure for stiff muscles is to get moving. Do you have a name, yet?"

Kurkar nodded. "Kurkar. You?"

"I'm Pahoehoe!"
****

The snapper chatted as they walked. The conversation distracted Kurkar from her sore limbs at first. Soon, she didn't really feel that bad at all. Pahoehoe had been right; more walking had helped.

That didn't mean she could keep up with a tireless snapper all day, though. Being carried on the back of a steadily trundling snapper wasn't entirely comfortable, but it rested the muscles tired from walking. It just made different muscles sore.

Kurkar hadn't known she had so many different muscles to hurt. She would have wallowed in the misery of it all evening if not for the food.

Pahoehoe grilled fruit.

Kurkar had never seen any food cooked before. She'd been born in a deepwater lair, with very little dry ground to even attempt a fire. Tasting it was a revelation. The crisp edges. The deep sweetness. Even the smoky smell from the fire. Kurkar ate like she never had before.

Before dinner was finished, more snappers showed up. They were from different clans, all pausing for a moment in their journeys to swap stories and share some food. It was like a party. Dragons added more food to the grill, snatching away cooked pieces whenever they thought one looked ready, eating them while still hot or letting them cool for a bit on a couple of chipped clay plates. The snappers didn't bother to be careful with the sticky morsels, not having any fur to worry them. It was a glorious mess. Kurkar had to use what little water magic she could just to wash up afterwards.

Things were winding down when one of the other snappers asked Pahoehoe about gardens. "Gardens?" Kurkar asked. "You keep gardens?"

The snappers grinned at her. "Well, they're rock gardens, not plant gardens."

Kurkar flipped her ears down in puzzlement. "You can grow rocks?"

Pahoehoe shook her head. "No. Okay, well, you can in the volcano, but that's not how a rock garden works." She exchanged a glance with the other snapper. "It's hard to explain. I could just show you, if you want to come back and see."

"I'd love to!"
****

The walk the next day was a lot easier. Kurkar's muscles didn't protest as much in the morning, and warmed away the aches faster, but also the road was in much better repair. Mostly they saw other snappers, but twice they passed mixed groups of dragons hauling goods in carts.

Pahoehoe never got tired, it seemed, but Kurkar had to ride a few times during the long afternoon. The road became steeper as it wound its way through the rising plateau, and soon it abandoned all fooling around and just headed straight up the side of the massive volcano at the heart of the Fire lands.

They camped late. Kurkar dozed on Pahoehoe's back like a hatchling long before they actually stopped moving, and she had no idea where they were until she woke up at the foot of a small hill.

The sides of the hill had lots of wild grasses and flowers, of the opportunistic type common to disturbed dirt, so the tundra filled her belly before getting up. Pahoehoe was already up and chatting over breakfast with another snapper, a black and white female with fiery wings and a cheerful pink hat. Buckets of liquid were staged nearby. Some of them were water, but others smelled of oil and coal and stranger things.

Kurkar nodded good morning to the snappers, and Pahoehoe called out, "Good morning! Go look at the garden! It's at the top."

There was a path of pretty colored stone up to the top, bordered with smooth river rocks. Kurkar wondered where they'd come from as she climbed. Once she arrived, though, she forgot about the path.

There was not a single plant on the top of the hill. Instead, it was covered with rocks and paths and metal sculpture. Here, a giant rock sat in a pool of sand, surrounded by ripples just like a pebble in a pond. There, loose curls of brightly polished metal gleamed amid black rock, surrounded by little clusters of gemstones, like flowers on a stem. There was a spot full of broken geodes with little bronze dragon figures lying inside, rolling about or sleeping or glaring at anybody who looked in on them.

After a long time exploring all the nooks and crannies, Kurkar spotted a pot of water and bent to take a drink, only to notice that there were pebbles in the bottom that made a picture of a bird! There wasn't one thing at the top of the hill that hadn't been shaped in some way, in contrast to the absolute disregard shown for the weeds and wildflowers that had colonized the sides.

She'd walked the whole thing before she'd realized it was too regularly shaped to be a natural hill. It wasn't just the river rocks that had been brought in, she realized. Some group of dragons had brought in the whole hill! They'd piled up rocks and earth to the shape and size they'd wanted, then covered it with art. The project had to have taken years. It was awe-inspiring.

"What do you think?" the cheerful black and white snapper asked when Kurkar finally returned to the bottom. There was something expectant in the tone.

"I... did you do this?" Kurkar asked.

"Most of it," the snapper said, proudly. "Coaldust did all the metalwork here, though. He loves his little figurines. My mother started the rock gardens, but hers are all further in. We keep them clean, but we don't do much with them, anymore."

Kurkar stared. "There are more?"

"Sure," the snapper said. "We build them at the edges of the lair, so when the lair grows, we make more of them."

Kurkar's head spun. Quietly, she said, "They must be wonderful."

"They're a joy," the snapper replied with a pleased smile. "The happiness is in the making, of course, but it's always nice to see them appreciated."

Kurkar just sat for a bit, imagining a place where dragons built wonderful things just for the joy of making them. Pahoehoe left for wherever she was going next, leaving her in the company of the other snapper, Psilomelane. Finally, as the afternoon began to sink into evening, Kurkar asked, "Could I stay here?"

"Stay as long as you like," Psilomelane said, "Though if you'd like to join the clan, you'd better talk to Chert first."

"Okay."
****

She met Chert the next day, and the pearlcatcher had been pleased to let her stay. For Kurkar, the days passed in a daze at first. She visited all of the rock gardens the snappers made, then spent a week just digesting all that art that so few seemed to notice. Then she started watching the dragons create. She peeked in on Forge as he made jewelry, and Chert pounding out armor. She saw Coaldust use sand and water to make molds for his tiny metal dragons, and then he and Pritchell would polish them and dress them in wire jewelry or little capes of scrap cloth and arrange them some place in the lair.

When she was tired of watching the smiths, she would relax by watching the older tundras stitching leather and shaping wood, making useful tools. Sometimes, she'd help by holding a piece steady or doing a little sanding, herself, and would feel the grain of the wood under her fingers grow silky and smooth as she worked.

And then there was the red tundra who came flying in, greeted half the lair as old friends, and immediately started working on half a dozen projects as if he'd never left. She asked around and found out he was Forge's grandson, who lived at three different lairs and traveled between them. Kurkar watched him work from a distance, feeling shy and small, and wondered if she hoped that he would notice her or that he wouldn't.