Tongue Tied Episode 12

Grant

Bessie hurtled down from the sky.

“Not so fast girl,” I yelled so she could hear me over the screaming descent. It felt like I was riding a hawk diving for a rabbit.

She didn’t slow down.

As we neared the ground, I felt her tense.

Thirty feet above the desert floor she adjusted the angle of her wings and stalled, she shuddered, her wings went limp, and we hit the ground — hard.

Drake popped out of Bessie’s mouth on the first bounce.

The impact threw me forward over Bessie’s head, and I tumbled into the only mud hole for fifty miles.

I didn’t see what happened to Aria, or where she ended up.

I struggled to my hands and knees, and I saw red.

Thick red clay clung to my face like a death mask. “What kind of lame-brained excuse for a landing was that?” I sputtered. I wiped gooey mud off my face, and squinted to see.

Bessie lay on her side with her back to me. “Did you hear me, you over-sized lizard?”

Aria poked her head over Bessie’s neck. “She’s hurt.” Aria limped toward Bessie’s chest and disappeared out of sight. “She’s bleeding,” Aria yelled. “Come quick.”

I ran as fast as I could. Between carrying an extra hundred pounds of mud, and feeling like a band of Ubuntu’s had just used me for a killing-stick practice dummy, it wasn’t all that quick.

When I rounded Bessie’s tail, I stumbled and brushed against it. She twitched, like she did during a bad dream, and knocked me down. When I looked up, I saw Aria’s knee inches in front of me.

“Not now, Grant,” Aria said. “Bessie’s hurt. Look at this.” She pointed to a blaster gash in Bessie’s side big enough for me to put my fist into. A trail of dried blood ran down her side from the wound all the way to her tail.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” I said. “We’ve got to get her some water to make up for it.”

Aria started ripping a strip from her skirt. “And she needs that bandaged before she loses any more.”

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Bessie ain’t a person,” I said. “She don’t need no human germ infected cloth bandage mucking up her system. She’s already in bad enough shape.”

Aria flashed me a look that seemed to border between you’re an idiot, and we can’t just let her bleed to death. “What do you suggest?”

“Mud,” I said. “And less attitude.”

“Mud,” she said. “Talk about infected. And, where you gonna find enough mud to patch that?” She pointed at the gaping wound still oozing blood.

“Trust me,” I said. “I can find the mud.”

She really looked at me for the first time. “Looks like you already did.”

“As far as patching her with it,” I said. “It’s what dragons do.”

“They’re dragons. What’re they gonna do?”

“Them dragon’s been living for thousands of years without no people help.”

(If you popped into my blog here and are wondering what in tarnation is going on, maybe you might want to click on over to Episode 1 to find out)

(Did you miss the last episode? Here is the link to Episode 11)

Tongue Tied Episode 11

“That’s Drake,” Grant said. “He’s going to the columns.”

“Why’s he in Bessie’s mouth?”

“You want to trade places with him?” Grant said. “There’s only room for two in the saddle.”

“I’m good here,” Aria said. “It’s not like I’m in your old saddle anyways. I’m sitting on this here itchy blanket.”

“It’s a sight better than Bessie’s teeth. Besides, Drake’s not a nice man. We’re safer up here whilst he’s down there.” Grant leaned forward to get a clear view of Drake, and, loud enough for Drake to hear, said, “Besides, where he is, if he causes any problem, all Bessie gots to do is clamp down a might, and problem solved.”

“Remind me not to be no problem to you,” Aria said.

Grant sat up and leaned back against Aria’s chest so her head was right next to his. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” And kissed her on the cheek.

The kiss befuddled Aria. She tingled, and became intensely aware of her body. She felt the dragon’s muscles ripple under its skin. The air growing colder as they glided higher and began drifting through wispy clouds. She felt Bessie’s spine gently undulate as its head bobbed with each flap of her wings. Aria’s dress bunched at her thighs, flapping in the wind. Tiny hairs on the back edges of the dragon’s scales tickled Aria’s bare legs where they rested against Bessie’s flanks each time the dragon thrust forward.

Aria shivered.

“Down a bit, Bessie,” Grant said. Bessie’s head dipped down and the rest of her followed in slow rhythm.

 Under Aria, Bessie’s spine arched downward - vertebrae by vertebrae - to follow after her dipped head. “Unhh,” Aria cried out.

“What’s wrong?” Grant said.

Aria blushed, and buried her face in Grant’s jacket. She sucked in a deep intoxicating breath rich with leather and Grant. “Nothing,” she said trembling. “Nothing at all.”

Half the sun had already dipped below the horizon and the air began to take on an evening chill when, “Look,” Grant said. “It’s the Columns.”

In the distance Aria could see white pillars rising out of the deepening shadows of the desert floor. Dusk had robbed the distant city of other colors, but the whiteness of the pillars seemed to glow in the dimming light. “It’s beautiful,” Aria said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Maybe from here,” Grant said. “Up close, it’s not the kind of place I want to spend any more time than I have to.”

“How can you say that?” Aria said. “Why, if I could live there, I don’t think I would ever want to leave. Look at those.” She pointed to smaller white pillars that formed a circle around a dome. “How can you say you don’t want to stick around that?”

Grant sighed. “It ain’t the architecture I object to, it’s the people.” He nudged Bessie down.

Aria shivered again, and bit her lip, as the dragon dipped.

 “Those what ain’t crooks in the Columns, is worse.”

(Uh oh. Are you really confused as to why Grant and Aria are riding atop a dragon? If so, and you wandered into Episode 11 at random, you might want to start out at Episode 1 of Tongue Tied)