The statement hung in the air for a bit. Like a low fog, or a bad odor.
“What do you mean… you’re a dragon?” Kre asked. He couldn’t help himself, but he looked Bel up and down as if trying to connect the image in his mind with the figure before him.
Though it was Bel that gave him the look that said, “Oh dear,” it was Kitalia hand that he felt sharply rapping the back of his head.
“I meant… well, you don’t look like a dragon.” He held up a hand to stay Kitalia’s physical retaliation and quickly added, “I mean, you look human. But, obviously, you’re not human… not even Tehynshin… and you don’t have the same look as an Ylveryan, so you’re not one of them. I guess I always have thought of dragons as at least having wings or something. Breathing fire. That’s how all the stories go anyway.”
“You are such an utter embarrassment sometimes,” she chided. “So, you were expecting a giant fire-breathing, flying lizard just because some drunk minstrel at the pub said it was so?”
“I can be that,” Bel said softly, “though I do not like it. I can be a great many things, should the situation call for it.”
“Do you want to tell him about Red? I kind of want to see if we can make his head explode,” Kitalia chuckled.
Bel nodded as Kre’s eyes darted back and forth between them. “Wait, let me guess,” he said before Bel could open her mouth. “Red’s a dragon too?”
“She is,” Bel said, frowning, “and yet, she isn’t.”
Kitalia rolled her eyes and Kre was appreciative of the fact that this time it wasn’t because of something he said or did. “Now you sound just like Red,” she muttered.
“Red is… well, it’s complicated,” Bel said, almost apologetically. “For our purposes though, here and now, Red is a dragon, just as I am.”
Kitalia wagged a finger in the air, “What I want to know then, is why she was after us.”
“That’s my fault,” Bel sighed. “I’m afraid that she detected my mark on Kre after spending time with you. She knew you were coming to her all along, and she had the Rangers standing by.”
“The Rangers work for her?” Kre asked incredulously. “I thought they were part of the Tehynshin government!”
She didn’t even bother with hitting him. Instead, Kitalia just hung her head in quiet shame for having failed the universe so spectacularly by helping such a foolish boy survive this long to make such idiotic statements as that.
“Um, no,” Bel responded, trying to mask the mixed feelings she had, something a bit between confusion and amusement. “She simply has some highly placed Rangers in her back pocket. Influencing them to do something is child’s play, really. In fact, it was Red that had the Rangers capture you Kitalia, up near Fort Cowl.”
“She did what?” Kitalia was clearly angered by that revelation. Her face had shifted quickly to a dark shade of red and even the tips of her ears were a bright crimson. “That no good two-timing, daughter of a…”
“Careful,” Bel said with slightly more of an edge to her voice than they had ever heard. “She may be a traitor, but she is still my sister.”