Thymara and several of the others had clustered around to hear her words and watch Tats attempt to groom the lively little green. The small dragon had smears of blood on her face, and several long threads of sticky guts stuck to her jaw and throat. Tats energetically scrubbed at her scaled face, smiling indulgently at her brags and her insistence that dragons had no need of human intervention. He was obviously infatuated with her. Thymara knew of the reputation the dragons had for charisma; she did not doubt that the ever pragmatic Tats was more than a little under the glamour of the creature.

She suspected that even she herself was under Skymaw’s spell. It had hurt her feelings more than a little that Skymaw had not even wakened enough to tell her of her triumphant kill. She felt excluded from her dragon’s life, and a bit jealous of Tats. At the same time, there was a tickling of unease at the back of her mind, as a perception she was reluctant to recognize became clearer for her. No matter how Tats might smile as he washed the blood and guts from Fente’s face, she was not a cute or even remotely masterable creature. She was a dragon, and even if her boasting sounded childish, she was swiftly discovering what it meant to be a dragon. Her declarations that she had no need for humans were not idle brags. The dragons tolerated the keepers and their attentions for now, but perhaps not for always.

Somehow, she had expected all dragons to be somewhat alike. In her early fancies about her new career, she had imagined them as noble and intelligent with generous natures. Well, perhaps Sylve’s golden could live up to that concept, but the others were as diverse as their keepers. Tats’s green was a nasty bit of work when she wished to be. Nortel’s lavender dragon was shy, until one approached too close and then he might take a snap. Good-natured Lecter and the large blue male he had befriended seemed well matched, right down to the spikes both were growing on their necks. The cousins Kase and Boxter’s orange dragons seemed as like-minded as their keepers.

Ever since she had witnessed the hatching, Thymara had seen the dragons as creatures that needed humans to survive. That perception of them had blinded her to how lethal they could be. She had, of course, always known that any of them were large enough to kill a human easily. Some were quick and clever enough that if they desired to become man-eaters, they’d be deadly and cunning enemies. Their disdain for humanity and sense of superiority had, until today, seemed an annoying but merely dragonish trait. Now her gaze wandered from the lively and occasionally good-natured Fente past her own sleeping Skymaw to Kalo.

The largest and most aggressive of the dragons had made himself a rough nest in the coarse reeds. His large claws had raked up damp earth and the reeds that had grown there to make a sleeping place. He dozed there, his massive head cushioned on his front feet, his wings folded against his back in sleep. Like all the dragons, he lacked the ability to fly, but in every other way, he looked fully formed. When she focused both her gaze and her thoughts on him, it seemed to her that he seethed with anger and frustration, as if his immense blue-black body concealed a simmering cauldron of rage. Greft, his keeper, sat on the ground not far from Kalo. The great dragon was clean, his scales gleaming. Thymara had wondered if his keeper had done that, or if Kalo had cleaned himself. Greft’s eyes were almost closed. He looked, she thought, like a man warming himself at a fire. For a moment, she had a sense of Greft enjoying the simmering heat of Kalo’s aggression and anger. Even as the image came to her, Greft opened his eyes. She caught a flash of gleaming blue in them and cast her gaze aside, trying to seem as if she had been staring past him. She felt uncomfortable that he should know she had been watching him.

Nonetheless, he smiled and made a small gesture, beckoning her to come closer. She pretended not to notice it. In response, his grin widened. He put out a hand to caress his sleeping dragon. His hand moved slowly, sensually over the dragon’s shoulder, as if he would point out to her how strong the creature was. The whole show unsettled her; she turned her head quickly as if she had been distracted by something Rapskal had said. Greft might have chuckled.

It was actually Sylve’s comment that caught her attention. “I am glad they had some luck hunting for themselves. At least they’ve had some food. Hadn’t we best try to do some hunting or fishing here now, for ourselves? Because I think they’ve settled for the night.”

She was right, of course. The boat carried some provisions, but fresh meat was always welcome. The hunters had been doing a good job so far of making daily kills. Every day there was some fresh meat for the dragons, even if it was not enough to fill them. The keepers had not been as successful. They spent most of their short hours of shore time each evening in grooming the dragons or doing what fishing they could. Today they’d have part of an afternoon as well as an early evening. Thymara saw that realization settle over the others. Most of them chose to try for fish; Thymara guessed that the rushes and reeds of this section of bank would offer habitat to lots of fish, but she doubted that any would be large enough to be truly useful in feeding a dragon. And she was tired of the water and the muddy riverbanks. She needed time alone in her forest and up in the trees.