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Yep, a dragon. Iridescent blue scales, bat-shaped wings with claws on the corner, a head framed in spiked horns, yellow scales trickling down its neck and belly. It scooped what it probably thought were great gusts with its wings as it tried to hover in front of me. I could’ve worn it on my shoulder like a parrot but it was flying in front of me, growling, small drops of my blood dripping down its chin. Tiny itty-bitty drops. I’ve had worse papercuts.
That doesn’t mean I appreciated this wake-up call. “Buzz off, I’m tired,” I said. “I don’t know that I’ve got the time or energy to appreciate your unique alien biology until I’ve at least had breakfast.”
“Attention giant,” came a voice. “You are breaking the Peace Accords of Thirty-Two-Seventy in which your kind promised to stay on the far side of the River Perilous. Please return to your own lands and take your… uh… shiny boulder house? with you.”
Excuse me? I squinted at the dragon again. Was it wearing a saddle and reins? Really? And was that… I tilted my head to the side. I got a better view of the tiny individual standing in stirrups on the dragon’s back. There was a person, standing on a dragon, hollering at me through some sort of megaphone. And if they were on the ground, the dragon would’ve had to stretch on its hind feet to touch my kneecap. Not to mention I could understand them? It sounded like we spoke the same language. I’d think I was dreaming except…
I wiped my nose with my finger. Yep, blood and a bit of a renewed sting. I bent over to get my first-aid kit from under the pod’s seat. “I can’t help but notice,” I said as I rummaged, “That you didn’t introduce yourself. You can call me Skip,” I said, referencing the nickname the port crews gave me back when I was a weedy new pilot and wouldn’t let anyone push me around without some deference to title. It earned me some ribbing but it worked, too, so that balances. I pulled out the kit, sat on my seat, and wiped the blood off my nose then daubed the injury with Clerol. The ointment immediately fell to its work of disinfecting, hardening into a little cover, and shading to my skin tone. It must have looked like the cut was healed already because the dragon roared and I heard a voice gasp “Magic!” Which is real rich coming from the five-inch-tall dragon rider.
“You dare threaten us?” the dragon rider called. “Cease your show of power and return beyond the bounds of the treaty!”
“All right, I’ve had it,” I said back, leaning forward. “The only one here threatening anyone is this little gecko taking a nip at me before you even introduced yourself. I healed a cut and you’re calling it a threat? This is ridiculous. I’m not a giant, either, you’re just a… pixie, I guess, and I came here by accident. Do you have anyone I can talk to who has even a little bit of tact so we can resolve this misunderstanding before I lose my patience?” I was going to tell him I’d scoop him out of the sky with my cup and keep his dragon as a nightlight but then I remembered I’d just said I wasn’t threatening him. I felt like that probably counted as a threat even though he deserved it.
The dragon swooped in a circle then landed on a spur on my door. It bent its head around and seemed to confer with its rider for a while, then they flew off. No word to me, just gone. Well, fine, I still hadn’t eaten breakfast. I grabbed another pack of rations and ate half, saving the rest for later, and bit onto the tooth care module while I brushed my hair a bit. I didn’t do much else; I was still wearing the same suit as when I left the ship. Technically it had mechanisms within to keep from being too… uh… musky if you had to wear it for days at a time but, well, I still wish I’d had a change of clothes. I’d only just taken the little oral module out, folded it back into its silvery container, and packed it back in the wall when I saw a contingent approaching my pod. I decided to meet them partway.
While I couldn’t see in detail- it was like trying to see something at twice or three times the distance due to their size- I assumed the retinue on horseback issuing from the road I’d seen earlier was fancily dressed, mostly from the variety of colors in their dress. They surrounded two main figures, one dressed in dark blue with silver and the other in deep rich red with gold. I crossed half the distance to them with a few strides and settled down cross-legged on the swath of churned earth to wait for them.
The party halted for a moment before approaching again. I couldn’t tell if their own hesitance or the horses’ was responsible for the pause. Then the person in red swung down from their horse and approached me, standing just before my knee. I noticed some sort of shimmer as they pressed their hand to their throat.
“Great giant Skip, we have come to parley.”
I was astonished. Not that they knew my nickname, I figured the dragon rider had flown to them and exchanged words, but at the volume of the voice. It sounded like someone sat across from me, speaking clearly, not shouting up from somewhere near the ground at a being a good ten times their size. At least.
“Thanks for greeting me so cordially,” I responded. “This time. But first things first, I’m not that great. Secondly, I’m not a giant. And thirdly, I don’t know what there is to parley about. I bear you no ill will.”
There was some conferring from the others, who’d crept closer while still giving me nervous looks. I gave them a short wave that might have had an edge of irony to it. Then Red came forward again.
“If you mean us no ill will, why did you tear apart the highway? Why this display of utter violence?”
I looked along the swath of torn earth and tried to see it from their point of view instead. If I’d been on my home planet, seen a streak of light in the sky that turned into a ground-shaking missile plowing across the landscape, tearing down what would to me be an acre-wide scar on the landscape and cutting off their road, then yeah, I guess I’d be scared. But hopefully I’d at least ask the intruder why before sending a flying bat on them. Did dragons have rabies? Should I watch for infection or something? The Clerol would take care of it.
“Right, yes, I can see how you would think that. But I’m not from here. That?” I pointed at my escape pod. “That was my lifeboat. My true vessel is in space, tearing itself into pieces. No, at this point it’s probably scrap and nothing. I blasted out of it in that to save my life and had no way to steer. I fell here by accident. Frankly, you should be glad I hit a road and not a city or something.”
Even from up here I could hear the collective gasp and angry murmurs. “No, I mean, I’m glad. Look, do you guys need help fixing it? I can probably… Just a second.”
The escape pods weren’t stocked to the gills, but they generally had some useful items. Multi-purpose tools usually because you never could tell what situation you’d end up in. I found a trench tool and went to the road and started scraping dirt off the end where it had piled up.
A cough sounded behind me and I turned around. Red had followed me, a few feet away so I didn’t accidentally squish them but still right there.
“That’s appreciated but… inefficient. Allow me.”
They gestured and suddenly the dirt lifted. Handfuls of it lifted into the air. Handfuls to me, anyway; this amount of dirt must weigh several times what these people did.
I stared. I’d thought before that maybe there must be magic here but it’s still overwhelming to have your guesses confirmed in this kind of manner.
“Hey, Red, not bad. I would contend, however,” I said as I pressed a button and the trenching tool unfolded, “that I’m still faster.” I took a shovelful out and piled it in a lump where the road would have wound. Red stared for a moment then ascended.
They flew right to my face, a swirl of air lifting them and flaring out their robes. As they got close to my face, I saw that Red was an older woman, somewhere in her fifties or sixties, I’d guess. She smiled at me, her cheeks rounding and teeth showing. “Skip, if you truly mean us no harm and came here by accident, I am sorry for what happened to you. But if you can do that much work so easily, well, I have some ideas for how we can help each other until such time as your giant family calls you home. A pleasure to meet you, by the way, I’m Marcia, Grand Doyenne of Haven City Mage’s Guild. Allow me to be the first to welcome you.”
Marcia extended a hand, and suddenly with an effort of will, a glowing shape shot from her, shaping around her arm until her hand had been duplicated and grown in red light. It was now about the size of a toddler’s hand to me, but much easier to deal with. I reached out with my own hand and took her hand of light and we shook.
It took Marcia and I only a few hours working together to create a raised bed connecting the two riven halves of the highway. The watching nobles raised a cheer and I waved back, dropping the irony in the gesture. I guess, until such time as someone notices my distress signal, I’ll be Haven City’s own giant. If my mom could see me now…
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