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“The ones that die are typically conjurations, Kinsley. They were never alive in the first place. They just rot like they were, so we need to get rid of them if they don’t dissolve on their own. The live ones manifest fairly close to the ground.”
“And the injured ones?” I demanded, pointing at the little lemur with a broken leg. “It’s obviously not a safe process.”
“That would have happened after the manifestation but before you found it. It was probably in a fight with another lemur and lost. It’s a dissipation of magic. The real ones teleport near the ground. The conjured ones appear in the air and fall. That distributes the magical load better. Otherwise, the pilgrimage is dangerous and unlikely to result in a full dragon.”
Hello, intel. It’d been a while since I’d gotten a dragon-kin or dragon to talk about the petitioning progress. “Pilgrimage? What pilgrimage?”
“There are a few ways a human can become a dragon or a dragon-kin can unlock their heritage. Petitioning is the easiest and safest, but it requires numerous dragons participating to succeed. It can take a petitioner years to cultivate enough favor with the dragons to start the rains. And the number of supporting dragons determines how many rains are needed. Today’s rain? One and done from my understanding of the matter. I don’t know much about the petitioner, but he wanted his status as a dragon to be kept quiet.”
“Human or dragon-kin?”
“Human, but he has some dragon ancestry. Too far down the line to claim status as dragon-kin, but he has the genetics to transition easier than regular humans. That’s all I know, though. I could even be wrong. It’s an honor system, and he didn’t claim to be a dragon-kin, although he did say he has draconic ancestry.”
Interesting. “Do you know how many dragons it took for this one-and-done petition?”
“That I do know. There were three hundred and fifty dragons present, and they had an equal number of future petitioners present. They had quite the shindig today.”
I gestured at the lemurs. “No kidding. How about the rain of toads?”
“Fifty dragons with a pair of petitioners, and they’ll be back for at least ten more sessions. They’re mated and wanted to petition together.”
I whistled. “Now that’s dedication.”
Cedrick grinned. “No kidding. Let me get these in the back so they can be taken care of, then I’ll handle your payment and we can gossip some more.”
“Sounds like a plan.” It’d been a while since I’d gotten news about Dragon Heights and the dragons.
When I wasn’t scrounging for bounties, I attempted to rebuild my life from the wreckage, attending classes when I could afford them in the hopes of securing an extra boring but ridiculously safe job, one that paid the rent without me worrying about being bitten, battling against hardened criminals, or otherwise putting myself in the line of fire.
Perhaps one day.
* * *
Friday, April 17, 2167
The Gray Ward
Dragon Heights, Wyoming
Cedrick served me tea while we chatted, and he even provided sufficient sanitizer to make certain I wouldn’t catch anything from the lemurs. Every twenty or thirty minutes, somebody came around with more of the stray animals, and I wondered how Cedrick contained them all in the back. I could only assume other dragon-kin or dragons worked to send them off to their new homes.
At five, precisely three hours after feeding me the basic gossip of Dragon Heights, which amounted to who was sleeping with who as a general rule, he said, “So, you want to know about the pilgrimage?”
“I’m curious,” I confessed.
“You have proven yourself to be a friend of dragons and dragon-kin, so I break no taboo telling you. But the trouble you cause and cause for yourself is your responsibility and your responsibility alone.”
How interesting. “I accept responsibility.”
“You always do, which is why you’re a friend of dragons and dragon-kin.”
In reality, I was a friend of the dragons and their kin for a few more practical reasons, including my general desire to avoid being eaten.
My parents would enjoy putting me in my place if they found out I had meddled in the affairs of dragons without taking appropriate care.
Then again, they would enjoy putting me in my place when they figured out where I’d gone after abandoning Miami. Once a month, I sent them a letter, but I used a service to give each letter a new post stamp somewhere far away from my actual location. With a warrant, they could find out I’d gone to Dragon Heights.
As it was expected of me, I smiled. “Do these pilgrimages create nearly as much trouble for others as the petitioners?”