LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 44, Day 81: Weight of Words
Pryce blinked as he woke, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he sat up – only to see a dragon posed over him, two blue lizards held in her jaws.
"Celeste?" Pryce whispered involuntarily. He was still half-asleep, and only remembered a second later that she wouldn't recognize that name.
The young dragon froze, a guilty expression in her eyes as she glanced at her still-slumbering father.
When neither of them moved, she silently set the lizards onto the ground, then clamped a talon around her jaws in what was unmistakably a gesture to stay silent.
Pryce nodded hesitantly, mimicking the gesture over the empty space in front of his mouth.
She nodded back, then crept away, incredibly silent for a creature her size. A few minutes later Pryce saw her fly away. She must have landed some distance away in order to not disturb either of them.
It was very early in the morning, the sky still quite dark, and the stars – oh. He’d forgotten to measure his latitude last night. Pryce quietly extracted himself from the sleeping bag and crept past Fathom to retrieve the sextant.
In less than a minute he determined his latitude to be 16.80 ± 0.05° North.
Pryce had to wait half an hour for the radio signal to arrive at 6:28:46 AM (which was followed by the same old morse mode message) to obtain his longitude 82.8083° West.
It had been 81 days since the chronometer was last calibrated, so its uncertainty was still a rather negligible 27 seconds, resulting in an uncertainty of ± 0.0075° West.
Out of curiosity he calculated the distance they traveled, which turned out to be about 155 kilometers. That meant Fathom flew at around 40 km/hr, a respectable pace.
Satisfied, Pryce walked past Fathom – who was still sleeping – and the blue lizards. He settled back into his sleeping bag and dozed off with a smile on his face.
"Good morning," Fathom yawned as he rose with a catlike stretch.
"Good morning," Pryce replied through a mouthful of his canned breakfast.
Fathom looked down and was surprised to see the two lizards. “How did you hunt two blue lizards? And I told you that I can hunt for my own food now.” He sounded a little impressed, despite his consternation.
“I didn't hunt those,” Pryce said, “they were here when I woke up.”
It was technically true.
"What?” Fathom asked, alarmed. “How did I not wake up? You didn't see who left them here?"
“No,” Pryce shrugged, “but it probably wasn't Ghorrah or Jooral.”
“Who are-” Fathom squinted, confused by Pryce’s poor pronunciation. “Oh, right, I don't think it was them, but that means-”
Fathom stopped in his tracks and stared silently at the lizards, an indecipherable expression on his face.
“I told you, she's not mad at you,” Pryce said.
“But what if she thinks I look terrible, and is giving me blue lizards so I don't embarrass her?” Fathom hissed as Pryce tossed a pebble at him. “What?”
“Stop being ridiculous and eat the lizards, then you can go ask her yourself,” Pryce admonished, rolling his eyes. He couldn't say anything without giving himself away, but he was certain there was no harm in discouraging this outlandish interpretation.
«What do you want?» Ghorra growled as Fathom landed nearby. He knew kicking up a cloud of dust like this was a breach of draconic etiquette, but his mind was so preoccupied that he couldn’t quite bring himself to care.
«Where is Ahnoumh? I need to talk to her,» Fathom demanded.
Jooral paid him no mind, and only glanced at Pryce, but shortly returned her attention to the somewhat humanoid chunk of wood she was carving.
«Why?» Ghorrah asked, completely unmoved by Fathom's adamant request.
«What do you mean 'why'?» Fathom bristled. «I want to talk to my daughter.»
Ghorrah did not respond, and Fathom was about to repeat himself when she said in a stern tone, «We met her when she was six, you know.»
«Yes…of course I know that,» Fathom hissed, confused as to why she was mentioning this.
«She has been very helpful with hunting and patrolling,» Jooral added, a note of affection in her voice. «She is almost like a…daughter to us.»
Fathom’s spines twitched with uncertainty and anger, but calmed a little at Pryce’s restraining touch. «That may be true, but she is not your daughter, she is mine, and I want to talk to her,» he said in steady, measured tones.
«What we are saying,» Ghorrah said, raising her head austerely, «is that we care for her, and when we first met her she was...not well. I will not say more; that is her business to tell you, but what we want to tell you is that she is important to us, and what we know is that intentionally or not you caused her great pain.»
Fathom flinched as if he were struck, and Pryce shifted uncomfortably on his neck; the words used in this conversation were far beyond his meager vocabulary.
«I will not pretend I have a good opinion of you, but I can tell you care for her,» Ghorrah admitted before rising up to her full height, and stared down at Fathom. «What we are trying to say is that if you harm her further, I will hunt you down,» she said, her casual tone was incongruous against the threat that it carried. «Is there anything else you would like to add, Jooral?»
Fathom resisted the urge to withdraw in face of her unconcealed animosity, and broke eye contact to glance at Jooral, who had paused in her carving.
«No, you summed it up quite well, my wings,» Jooral said, staring intently at Fathom for the first time in their short acquaintance.
«I know I have…failed her,» Fathom admitted through gritted teeth, «but I would never act to hurt her,»he growled, not backing down from either of the larger dragons.
«Then we have no problem, yes?» Jooral said casually, breaking some of the tension in the air.
«Her home is north-west from here, just follow the mountainside,» Ghorrah said, sitting back down but not quite relaxing. «Do not forget what I have said.»
Fathom took a few cautious steps back, then nodded before retreating to a proper distance and taking flight.
"Did it go well? I think she gave you directions at the end," Pryce asked, a note of concern in his voice. It must have been alarming to not understand certain parts of that conversation, Fathom thought.
«Well enough,» he grunted, subdued.
It didn’t take long to find the cave; it was just where Ghorrah had said it was. Fathom landed a safe distance away, unsure of why she hadn’t come out yet. Surely she heard his approach, did she not want to talk to him?
Pryce dismounted before he could voice any concerns, and Fathom hesitated no longer. They were just about to enter when the scrabbling of hurried footsteps echoed out the caverns before Celeste herself stumbled out; she had clearly just woken up.
«Hello Ahnoumh,» Fathom said reflexively. «...Are you well? It is…not very early,» Fathom said, surprised that she was still sleeping.
«Yes, I am well,» Celeste said, somewhat drowsily and looking uncertain. «I…had things to do last night, so I did not sleep very much,» she added to justify her condition.
«Good, good,» Fathom said awkwardly. «...someone left two blue lizards in our cave when Pryce and I were both sleeping, was that you?»
Her eyes flicked to Pryce so quickly that he almost missed it. «Yes, I had thought you would be hungry, and I did not want to wake either of you.»
«They were very good, thank you,» Fathom said, wincing internally at how stilted the conversation was. Pryce nudged Fathom’s neck pointedly, grunting in annoyance.
Fathom flicked his spines in irritation, but steeled himself as he looked his daughter in the eyes.
«About what happened all those years ago…I am sorry, for failing to protect you.»
Celeste's eyes widened dramatically, surprised by this sudden apology. «...I am the one who should be sorry, for being a burden, I mean,» she said, lowering her head.
«Raptor shit!» Fathom hissed vehemently. He continued when she only blinked in shock, «You were only six years old; there was nothing you could have done. You were never a burden.» With each word, his voice thickened with emotion, until it nearly cracked. «Why did you ever think otherwise?»
«But that day you told me to leave, you were hurt, and you said…» She trailed off, then tossed her head. «I thought you meant that I was the reason you were getting hurt.»
«No, never,» Fathom growled vehemently. «It was just – in my mind it was obvious that the failure was mine. I am sorry I ever made you think otherwise.»
Her eyes, red like his, glimmered wetly, even as his own vision began to blur. She moved to embrace him, and he hesitated for a moment before returning the gesture, wrapping his wings around her.
«I forgive you,» she muttered into his shoulder.
«I...have not made amends yet,» Fathom rasped.
«None are needed.»
«I…do not think I deserve this,» he protested weakly.
«I do not care.»
«So stubborn,» Fathom sighed.
«Well…half of me did come from you,» Celeste retorted, though she rumbled happily as she said so, the vibrations resonating through Fathom’s body.
«That is…true,» he said, slow and uncertain. He wasn’t quite sure what to say, but eventually he allowed himself to respond in kind.
Pryce watched the parent and child reconcile, stepping away to give them some privacy – not because he had to dry his eyes, of course.
He stood just outside the cave while the dragons talked – a polite fiction. He couldn't go very far away; that would be dangerous, and dragons spoke so loudly that it was impossible to not overhear, and it was only their language that provided them any degree of privacy. They talked for quite some time about personal things, most of which Pryce couldn’t comprehend, but it was obvious they were speaking on good terms.
«I should have gone to see you years ago, I feel a little ridiculous for worrying so much now that we have actually talked,» Celeste said, laughing half-heartedly at her own expense.
«Yes, I'm sorry I did not try to see you earlier...I thought you were disappointed in me,» Fathom said, ducking his head a little shamefully.
«So did I.» Celeste shrugged her wings weakly. «We have both made misjudgements.»
«Yes...I should thank Pryce,» Fathom said, turning around to see the human re-enter the cave. "When did you leave?» Fathom asked, blinking in surprise.
"Early on, I thought you two needed to be alone," Pryce said.
"But you can’t understand much Draconic, and you were standing close enough to hear us anyway,” Fathom pointed out.
“It’s polite for humans to pretend that you don’t hear something you’re not supposed to,” Pryce shrugged.
“That is strange…but I wanted to thank you for your advice," Fathom said, his gratitude delivered with only a little reluctance.
"And...?" Pryce smirked.
"...And you were right," Fathom grumbled, sighing dramatically.
"You’re very welcome," Pryce smiled, tilting his head cordially.
«Why are you thanking him?» Celeste asked once Fathom had translated their exchange. She still seemed a little bemused by her father speaking in the strange human tongue.
«He pestered me to ask you about…what we just talked about. Both last night and this morning,» Fathom explained with mock exasperation that made Pryce suspicious.
«I see,» Celeste said thoughtfully. «Can you tell him I said thank you as well?» She asked, giving Pryce a knowing look as Fathom relayed her words.
"Tell her that she's welcome," Pryce said, and he made a clamping gesture over his mouth when Fathom looked away.
«Do you want to go hunting together?» Celeste asked Fathom when he finished translating for Pryce.
«Of course, I will be glad to hunt with you again, but didn't you hunt this morning?» Fathom asked.
«I...only caught two lizards,» Celeste admitted.
Fathom blinked, belatedly warmed by the full extent of the gesture. «In that case, I need to catch more for you,» he resolved.
«If I don't catch them myself,» Celeste taunted, flaring her wings.
"We are going hunting, do you want to come with us?" Fathom asked Pryce.
"I guess it will be safer than being alone," Pryce sighed, climbing aboard with Fathom's help.
Fathom and Celeste landed by a river a quarter of an hour later, their jaws covered in gore.
"Do you want to go down?" Fathom asked Pryce.
"Yes, please," Pryce wheezed, unbuckling the carabiners as Fathom knelt down. The human gingerly stepped into the palm of Fathom’s proffered hand and was lowered onto the ground, his knees almost buckling as he stumbled away to lean against a tree. "That was a bit much," He breathed.
"I was the one who was hunting, why are you tired?” Fathom asked, confused.
“Humans aren’t supposed to fly like that, and I was holding on tightly, okay?” Pryce groaned, flexing his stiff fingers.
“Why didn’t you say anything if you were in pain?” Fathom asked, annoyed.
Pryce shrugged weakly. “I don’t like to complain.”
Tossing his head in exasperation, Fathom waded into the river and left Pryce to his recuperation.
«I could have hunted two if Pryce was not on my neck,» Fathom snorted as he turned to Celeste, who had already cleaned most of the blood from her maw. She had quickly caught and eaten two mammalian herbivores with oddly claw-like limbs, and Fathom had caught a third once he began to fly at a rate that Pryce wasn’t quite comfortable with.
«I thought you taught me to not make excuses,» Celeste said innocently.
«That was a reason, not an excuse!» Fathom protested.
«Oh, very well,» Celeste sighed, as if conceding an important point. «We can have a real competition later, when you have no exc – I mean, no reason for losing.»
Fathom snorted, outwardly dismissing her snark though he was proud of how proficient of a hunter she had become. «Enjoy the victory while you can, a real competition will have to wait until I can leave Pryce somewhere safe.»
«You can trust Jooral and Ghorrah,» Celeste reassured, though Fathom did not seem very convinced.
«Maybe once they can understand Pryce's speech,» he said hesitantly.
Celeste tilted her head and widened her eyes a little, looking as if she remembered something important. «That reminds me, why did humans try to come here?» she asked, glancing at Pryce who was stretching.
«That is complicated,» Fathom sighed, «we should explain with all three of you together.»
«Hello, Ahnoumh...Huroumh,» Ghorrah said reservedly upon their landing.
«Hello Ghorrah!» Celeste replied as she nudged the older dragon affectionately, her tailtip lashing happily as she did so.
Fathom made his much less enthusiastic greeting, though he was privately gladdened to see his daughter so much less reserved.
«Where is Jooral?» Celeste asked.
«Collecting materials, like always,» Ghorrah shrugged. «Things...went well?» She asked Celeste while staring at Fathom.
«Yes, very well, we talked a lot,» Celeste answered. «I told you he is not a bad father,» she added proudly.
«If you say so,» Ghorrah huffed. «Why are you all here?»
«We were going to tell you more about humans, but it seems we should wait for Jooral to return,» Fathom said.
«Yes, the human,» Ghorrah said, peering at Pryce. «I do have many questions, but I will wait for her to return.»
They sat and waited for a few moments until Celeste decided to sun herself, and the others followed suit.
A few minutes later Jooral returned, hobbling as she carried what looked to be a dragon-sized clay cup, much to Pryce’s amazement. «It seems like things went well,» she noted.
«Yes,» Celeste confirmed.
«We were going to ask the human more questions," Ghorrah said.
Pryce watched with great interest as Jooral set the cup down, then covered it with a wooden lid. He was dying to ask about that, but it seemed prudent to answer any questions the dragons had first.
«Well, I am here now. I think we should ask questions in order, our conversation yesterday was…messy,» Jooral suggested, to which the others nodded their heads in agreement.
«You can go first, since you're so interested in them,» Ghorrah said.
«Thank you, my wings,» Jooral said cheerfully before turning to Pryce. «How do you know what our lands look like?»
Pryce showed them the satellite imagery, and through Fathom as an intermediary, explained the concept of rockets, and how they put a camera onto a rocket to take pictures from very high up. He felt almost like he was giving lectures again, save for the slight difference that his class consisted of three interested dragons. At least none of them were napping, he thought with some amusement.
«I do not truly understand how the rockets work, but it makes sense that these photographs were made by making cameras fly up,» Jooral said, dissatisfied that they could not explain the workings of a rocket to her satisfaction. In the end, Pryce had to explain many other concepts, such as distance, temperature, and thermal expansion. She surprised Pryce by crooning triumphantly to Ghorrah when Pryce explained the last one, as it was something she always suspected but could not prove.
«Just because he says it does not mean it is true,» Ghorrah grumbled. «If warm air goes up, then why does it get colder the higher you fly?»
«Pryce proved it to me,» Fathom said, and explained the experiments he had seen.
«Well…just because it is true does not mean that it is important,» Ghorrah said irritably. «What I wanted to ask is why did humans try to come here? Do you want our land?»
"We wanted to come here because we wanted more land and metals," Pryce admitted. "But we didn't know other intelligent animals existed. We did not come here to take things from you, of course.”
Jooral shrugged half-heartedly. «Well, at least he seems to be honest.»
Ghorrah rumbled skeptically. «That does not answer why you and Huroumh are here.»
«This is your fourth question, I thought it was my turn,» Celeste mumbled petulantly.
Pryce gave her an apologetic shrug. "We are here because I need help; more humans are coming in another ship to rescue me in 19 days. We know where they want to be, but they might end up somewhere else. I need dragons to help me find this ship so I can tell them about dragons."
«How do you know when this ship will be here?» Ghorrah asked suspiciously.
"This is very complicated, I can tell you more tomorrow, Celeste still has a question," Pryce said, glancing at the sun in the sky. It was probably around four or five o’clock, so there wasn’t much daylight left for the day.
Jooral looked interested upon hearing Fathom translate the word 'complicated', and Ghorrah also looked like she wanted to ask more, but they both held their tongues to let Celeste speak.
«...your land is much bigger than ours, how many humans are there?» Celeste asked curiously.
Pryce explained the concept of a million.
«What does that have to do with the number of humans?» Ghorrah asked, confused, while Celeste and Jooral widened their eyes in surprise as they understood the implications.
«There are not millions of humans, are there?» Celeste asked warily.
"There are indeed fifty million humans on that island,» Fathom confirmed, answering for Pryce. «I felt the same way,» he added candidly after the most vocal of their reactions had passed.
«And you all want to come here?» Ghorrah demanded.
"No, no, only a few of us wanted to come here, we wanted to see what this land was like first before we tried to do anything."
«That makes sense, we would want to know what a new island is like too,» Jooral said reasonably. «But fifty thousand thousand humans...that is so many. I wonder how big a pile of fifty thousand thousand grains of sand would be?» Fathom translated with a curious look at Pryce, clearly wondering the same thing.
“That depends a lot on the size of the grains of sand, but 50 million grains of sand is probably less than what can fit in that glass of alcohol I gave you,” Pryce shrugged.
«I…was not expecting that question to be answered, how do you know that?» Jooral said.
Pryce sighed. He supposed it wouldn’t take too long to teach about units of weight.
“Do you think you will be safe staying in the cave by yourself?” Fathom asked as he flew Pryce back to their temporary place of rest. They had just left a very engaging conversation, which Jooral seemed to want to keep going despite the setting sun – she had expressed particular envy at being able to measure things as precisely as humans could, and had hinted that she would like a scale for herself. Celeste was also an eager participant, though she’d excused herself a quarter of an hour ago citing her lack of sleep from the night before.
“Probably, why do you ask?”
“I was thinking of hunting something for Celeste tonight, to pay her back for the lizards this morning,” Fathom said.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine, I have my rifle,” Pryce reassured.
“Good,” Fathom said, nodding as he glanced back at Pryce. He was silent for a few moments, then said, “I wanted to tell you earlier that it is…not normal for dragons to talk to their children like that. No one asks for help, unless it is for something that can benefit both dragons.” Fathom paused for a few moments. “If you were not here, and if you did not convince me, then I don’t think I would have talked to her like that. Thank you.”
“...You’re welcome.” Pryce felt that response was insufficient, so he added, “It might have taken longer, but I think you would have talked to her eventually.”
Fathom rumbled doubtfully, but he looked ahead to focus on his descent – they had arrived at their destination.
He landed a bit more smoothly this time, and froze as Pryce unbuckled himself.
Celeste was already sleeping in their cave.
Pryce followed his line of sight and whispered, “What is she doing here?”
Fathom made no reply, save for giving Pryce an uncertain glance. He slowly crept up to his daughter and sat in indecision, half-hoping she would wake. He stiffened when she stirred and curled more tightly around herself as she mumbled in her sleep. They both watched as she stilled, and Fathom sighed.
In a familiar-yet-painful gesture he laid down and curled himself around his daughter, blanketing her beneath his left wing. She did not wake, but shifted and curled more tightly around herself.
She was a little too large to fit comfortably under his wing anymore, but that did not matter in the least.
[JOURNAL ENTRY]
Day 81,
Fathom and Celeste made up today, which was quite heartwarming.
As ridiculous as it sounds, teaching dragons stuff might get a little stale if I’m going to have to do it a few hundred more times. Perhaps I view it through the lens of giving a lecture? At least I’ll be able to ask questions of my own, but I’m not holding out much hope on getting a word in edgewise between three curious dragons.
I don’t know why Celeste ended up in our ‘guest cave’, but she seems quite comfortable sleeping under Fathom’s wing.
I’m glad for them.