Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

Bon drew a careful breath, then exhaled with a little puff of flame and smoke. Penn skipped nimbly aside. “You must all stick to my agreement,” Bon said. “The younger ones who are not settled must have my gold, what there is of it. You and Berend have begun your hoards already, let you each take only one symbolic piece of mine, and let the other three share what little is left. I have not amassed a great store, but it will be enough to help them.” “We had already agreed that, Father,” Penn said. “And of course they will likewise take the greater shares when we eat you. Berend and I are established, while our brother and sisters are still in need.”

“Six lifetimes you may have been taught, but when I was young there were priests who would still give absolution to those who wanted it. It is only in my lifetime and yours that it is forgiveness that has become a sin. What was wrong was paying for absolution, not forgiving the burdens of those who would lay them down. The rite of absolution is still in the book of prayers. Frelt would have refused me this, I know, out of spite, but I had thought you would have had spirit enough to do it.” “Yet it is a sin, Father, and one the Church preaches against as strongly as priest-flight.” Penn flexed his bound wing again. “It is not an article of religion, true, but a difference in practice that has arisen over time. Confession is now abhorrent. I cannot possibly give you absolution. If anyone discovered it, I would lose my position. Besides, my own conscience would not allow it.”

“Oh yes, my dear, we had to come, I know that. I didn’t mean that harshly,” Daverak said, dipping his wings to his wife, who acknowledged this contrition with a tiny inclination of her own wings. “But the Majes have had four born, you know, and they can’t possibly manage another four on that bad land, and I was thinking to bring something nourishing home for little Lamerak.” He gestured with a wingtip at the green dragonet. “A bit off color, you may have noticed,” he said to Frelt. “Temporary, strictly temporary. He needs fresh liver. He shall have it soon in any case. Our coming here made no difference to that, now that I think of it.”

“You may not be the eldest, but you are a dragon grown. We are just useless females,” Selendra said, her violet eyes flashing. “Afterthoughts. Nobody tells us anything. We are doubtless to be the dinner for the rest of you, and I would have appreciated a little time to prepare myself for that.”

“I’ve no room for you,” he said, truthfully enough, thinking of the comforts of his city establishment. “And Irieth is no place for maidens, unless they are chaperoned and have known names. I couldn’t protect you there any more than I could here. You would be someone’s dinner sooner or later, or worse. You’ll be safe with Penn and Berend.” “Safe, but separate,” said Haner, in tones that told her brother that this was tragedy indeed. “You know Selendra is so impulsive and I am so thoughtful that separated there is no knowing what she might do, while I will never do anything at all.”

There was a splendid chapel a little in the old style within Benandi Place, where the Exalt generally heard a Firstday evening service. In the morning she preferred to attend the church (which was dedicated to Sainted Gerin, but known to all as Benandi Church) conveniently located downwind in the valley. With many of our gentry who have chapels of their own but who prefer to attend divine service in public, the impulse springs from a desire to be seen, or to be seen to do one’s duty, or sometimes simply from a dislike of the early rising required to have a service in the chapel, which must necessarily occur before the one in the church. With the Exalt, however, everyone knew it was rather that she desired to see everyone else doing their duty in church. If she did not see any of her farmers, or indeed her neighbors, in church on a Firstday morning, she regarded it as part of her duty to visit them within a day or two and inquire into the matter. The dragons in the neighborhood of Benandi Place were thus much given to admirably regular and punctual churchgoing.

Penn doesn’t mention his father’s beginnings, Selendra blurted them out in her first dinner party. Would you want your wife to do that? She doesn’t have the poise a wife of yours needs. Think of your position. You came to it very early, but you have to act in accordance with your rank. I’m telling you what your father would if he were alive. Your wife will be Exalt Benandi. Selendra has never been to Irieth, never managed a great estate, never even lived in one. She should marry someone of her own kind, and so should you. Marriages too far apart in rank may seem exciting, but marriage is a day-to-day affair, you have to rub along together, and differences of that nature become like grit in the gold of the comfort of daily life.”

“You’re so practical, Haner,” Londaver said. “So clever and so practical, and so pretty in that delicate way. I really do like you the best of all the maidens I ever met. Do you think Daverak would try to cheat us? I suppose I would be in a better position to negotiate with him if you’re not looking all bridal. Very well, let’s just keep it a verbal agreement until I speak to Daverak. But I shall consider that we are to be married, whatever color your scales are, and I dearly look forward to seeing them pink, and then redder and redder.”

“Then listen to me as head of the family. You’ll welcome Selendra when I tell you to, or I’ll serve you at our marriage feast.” “You dare?” she said. Sher just looked at her. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said. “To be known as the Exalted Lord who ate his mother when she was strong and well?”

Fights rarely last long, even fights to the death. It seemed endless, but it was less than five minutes before the whirling flaming clawing heap of dragon sorted itself out, with Daverak dead underneath and Sher, scorched and bleeding, standing triumphantly above. Selendra rushed forward at once to lick the victor’s wounds. Before Avan’s eyes as she pressed herself against Sher’s side she blushed like a bride, from an even gold to a glorious and shining rose pink.

The magic of good storytelling is that the reader _cares_ when Selendra changes color here, and understands why it's a big deal.