Thrax

There was no way of knowing how many beings were down there, cleansing and restoring their dragonhood.  It made Agena think of stories she had heard of Earth in pre-interstellar days, when people had sworn they had seen such things in lakes on the home planet.  There was never enough proof of their accounts until the subterranean caves connecting those lakes to the ocean were found, giving evidence of the animals passing from the sea to inland waters.

 If only those people could see what she was seeing now, Agena thought with a smile.  The believers of the “monsters” inhabiting those lakes hundreds of years ago would be overcome with shock and awe at what was taken for a plain fact today. 

Thrax glided their craft out over the surface of Shimmershine and brought it humming to a stationary position at a point that Agena judged was just a little less than halfway across the lake.  Then he turned to her and said, “I’ll have to be under for about half a standard hour, perhaps forty-five minutes, to get the full benefit of exposure.  Will you be all right by yourself while I’m down there?”

“Yes, certainly,” said Agena.  “You need this, and I’ll have great scenery to watch while you’re off.  Don’t worry about me; I wanted to come, remember?”

“Very well, then,” Thrax said, getting up from his seat.  “The sooner I’ve had my swim, the sooner we can move on to…other things.” 

Agena smiled up at him, and Thrax gave a subtle smile in return.  He moved his hands to the strap and loincloth just below his waist, and Agena felt her pulse quicken a bit, knowing that he was about to take off what little he was wearing and was not shy about it I any way.

.  She remembered, too, from studying up a bit on the culture that the Lacertans had made for themselves, that the dragon people had very little in the way of body shame.  Of course, with bodies like theirs, they had no reason for it.  Humans, over the last couple of centuries, had mostly gotten over their fear and loathing of their own bodies. 

Lacertans, though they dressed for convenience and social convention, really had none at all.  So Thrax had no inhibition at all about pulling away his thong and loincloth in front of a woman he had only just met late this morning and showing her fully what lay under them. 

But no sooner had Thrax begun the gesture than a voice called down from overhead:  “Hail, Sir Knight!”

Thrax and Agena both looked up and found a Knight swooping in toward them.  This one’s dragon body was as strong and powerful as Thrax’s, but much more lean, with curves in places where Thrax in his dragon form had none and horns only about half the size of his.  All of this, and the Knight’s higher-pitched voice, told Agena that they were being greeted by a female Knight, a Dame of Lacerta—one of Thrax’s sisters-in-arms.

“Hail, Meline!” called Thrax, waving at the newcomer.  “Still on lake patrol, then?”

“And enjoying it,” said Meline, flying one circle around the hoverboat.  “Permission to come aboard?”

“Granted!” said Thrax, smiling the broadest smile that Agena had yet seen from him.  She was not at all sure how to take this.

Behind the seats was a small open deck, and Meline came in for a landing there, morphing to the form of a lovely, red-haired woman in Knight’s clothing, as athletically built as Agena herself.  “I heard about the Lottery,” she said.  “I heard they called you in, and I was wondering how you were doing.”  She cast her bright green eyes at Agena: “Is this…?”

Thrax gestured at Agena and said, “This is my aspirant, Agena Morrow.  She plays Sphereball and has been awarded the…what did you say it was?”

“The Pleiades Cup,” said Agena.  “Two times.”  For some reason, she was feeling very competitive at the moment and needed to let this other female know exactly with whom she was dealing.

Thrax said, “Agena, this is Dame Meline Gable.  We trained together at the Spires.”

Meline and Agena shook hands, Agena decided that it was best to keep things on a friendly basis to find out more about this dragon lady.  On some level, though, a purely rational impulse that was completely at odds with her other feelings told Agena there was no need to feel threatened.  She was his fellow Knight and that was all…wasn’t it?

“How do you do, Meline?” said Agena.

“Very well, Agena,” the lady Knight said.  “And welcome to Lacerta.”

“Thank you,” said Agena. 

“Is this your first visit to our planet?” Meline asked.

“It is.  I’ve never been here before.  You…well, you don’t have a Sphereball league, and I’ve always taken my holidays in other places.”

“There’s no other place quite like this,” said Meline.  “Though I suppose you know that already.”  Looking at Thrax out of the corners of her eyes, she added, “And I can’t believe my old friend here is actually in Courtship.  After some of the times we’ve had, he’s actually in line for mating.  It only goes to show it really does happen to the best of us…”

Thrax, mildly incensed and more than a little embarrassed, cut her off.  “Meline, if you don’t mind…”

Agena faced Thrax with a cocked eyebrow, wondering aloud, “Just exactly what kind of ‘times’ have the two of you had together?”

Simmering, Thrax replied, “Not the kind of times you may be thinking.”

Meline chuckled a bit at her comrade’s discomfiture and the human female’s pointed curiosity.  “Oh, Agena, I’m sorry.  You didn’t think…you don’t actually think…”  And she dissolved into mild laughter.  Thrax fidgeted and looked away from both of them, eyeing the water and wanting very much to be in it.

“I don’t know exactly what to think right now,” Agena admitted.

Thrax tore his eyes from the water and said with the same sharpness at Agena’s curiosity, “Well, you’ve no need to think anything like that!”

Meline carefully put a hand on Agena’s shoulder.  Stifling her laughter, she said, “He’s right, Agena.  He’s right; there was never anything like that.  Thrax is more of a brother to me than anything else.  We’ve seen battles together, that’s all.  Well, battles and games and liquor halls.  Truly, he’s the best dragon I know.  Even when he’s drunk.”