by Mr. David Reese Dorrycott

Chapter Eighteen

Apologies

Sunrise found Sara sitting up in bed, her hands and legs still swollen too much to use. When Amanda entered with a tray of breakfast food the older woman gasped. “Don’t tell me you still do your own cooking” she asked as Amanda laid the tray on a table. “You know magic right? So why not just conjure it up.”

Moving the rooms single straight backed chair next to the bed Amanda allowed herself to settle before answering. “Magic takes energy Sara. Not to say I couldn’t, Marcus has admitted that is where all his peanuts come from. But he’s a Master Sara, he’s been doing this over a thousand years. If I tried I’d be exhausted in seconds and even then it probably wouldn’t be eatable. Sara, it takes more than desire to do things right. It takes training, skill and long practice. Practice I’m still getting.”

“So you can still cook” Sara decided, inhaling the delicious scent of maple syrup and oatmeal. Amanda had always been a fairly good cook and from the smell it was obvious to the artist that her friend had improved since her last meal with her. “Doesn’t that take time from your studies?”

“Yes it does. So does sleep, bathing and visiting ill friends. You know how it goes, we make time for the things that are important to us. Your important to me Sara, now lets eat. I have more drills with Marcus and those Chemistry symbols are driving me nuts. At least it isn’t making paper again, without the gas mask Marcus got for me I toss my cookies every time I enter the workroom. Once I can cast that major spell he told you about I won’t need it, but I’ll probably keep it since I can’t stand the smell of day old paper pulp. Don’t worry though, we can talk a little later before we go to bed tonight. You can have the bed, I’ll take the sofa in the common room. I have to be up very early after all.”

“On a Sunday” Sara asked as she sat up to take an offered plate. “Your working on Sundays now?”

Amanda swallowed before answering. “I’m failing Chemistry Sara so I need to hit the books hard. Actually, I have a low C but if I want to try for a Doctorate I have to average at least a B in all my classes. How are you doing?”

“I think I’ll be doing a lot better now” the older woman answered. “I have my muse back and my model, or do I?”

Amanda smiled before eating. “You do” she whispered. The rest of their meal though was eaten in silence.

After Amanda had cleared the plates and left the dragon Marcus wandered in. “She loves you like a sister Sara, not how you love her” he remarked after the door closed behind him.

“I know” Sara admitted. She was sitting up in bed, wearing an oversized shirt that Amanda had loaned her. “Why hasn’t she told her parents she’s alive?”

“She fought over that one Sara. Then came to the conclusion that such knowledge would cause more grief than letting them believe she was dead. Before you leave I will cast upon you a glamor that, when you are with them you will be able to keep her secret.”

“Thanks. Say, you’re a vegetarian right?”

“Quite. Why?”

“Well, as a vegetarian why would you need so many nasty looking teeth?”

Marcus laughed softly. “Our plants fight back you know.” He shook his head no, still with smiling eyes. “All dragons were meat eaters originally. It is by choice, not design that we have turned away from meat though a mother with eggs must eat some, less the children’s brains are stunted. Besides, a field of vegetables will support more dragons than the same field if animals are raised there. It is simple supply and demand.”

Sara fiddled with the shirt she was wearing, thinking. “Its just that in all the fairy tales dragons desire maidens, preferably Princess’s. I guess it is just to make them seem special.”

“Probably” Marcus agreed. “I really came in to apologize. I may be a thousand years old, but I’ve only been on your planet a year and I made a terrible mistake.”

“I’ll live. Marcus, you arrived when?”

“The day Amanda called you. Sara, she really died that morning. If she turns away from magic she will return to what she was when she accepted it, a many hours cold corpse. There is nothing I can do about that. Had she called me a day before it would be different.”

“It was that scroll her mother found wasn’t it” Sara asked.

“It was. Hanson sent it out to find his replacement. No one could know that replacement was so ill that she would take weeks to correctly translate his text. In time every possibility occurs dear Sara, maybe in time she will turn to you. I don’t know, I can’t say. You are born with your desires, you do not learn them. Nor are they some form of mental illness.”

Relaxing against the massive pile of pillows Amanda had supplied Sara touched her still swollen fingers together, staring at them. “Why. What did I do to want a woman in my heart instead of a man.”

“You will have to ask your Diana about that” Marcus admitted. “Certain things the Gods decide for us. In your case, maybe she needed you to love Amanda. It really would make sense after all. I’ve listened to Amanda talk about you, were you male she would have been yours years ago, as it is, I do not know. She has too many feelings for you not to be some kind of love, but not those strong feelings we know lead to physical love. I am afraid that this is confusing to me as I am after all, only male.”

Sara giggled, pulling the blankets up closer to her neck. “Thank you Marcus. Hope or none I want to be with her. Wither we ever touch fingers or not, or become one doesn’t matter to my heart. My Amanda is alive, she is healthy and happy that’s all I care about. Now I really am tired, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all Sara. And Sara? If nothing else, your last words prove your love greater than anything else you have done. Sleep well.”

“Thanks you mouse eating dragon” Sara yawned.

Marcus stopped, looking up at the woman laying comfortably in his students bed. “Don’t push me mouse, I might just decide to find out what a mouse maiden tastes like. And Sara, next time Amanda comes in try to keep that shirt closed. I don’t think its working.” He chuckled at the mouse’s embarrassment as he left.