Have it your way, since you've already overturned my plans for the next six months - petty plans, ordinary plans, but some of us work for a living. I've got my common dictionary if you want to stop and look that word up.
No? Figured as much. I'll start from the beginning, after I'd heard about the book and made up my mind to borrow it. Didn't think I'd admit that part and hoped to catch me lying? I'm surprised that you're that myopic.
Yes, I know what that word means. I had a proper education before I cut out and burned. I know you think that I sold myself cheap, that anyone who burns is trading their magical talents for a quick fix, but the truth is, I got a good deal ... and I have just enough magic in me when I need to push.
No, that's not a threat.
I wined and dined a junior archivist until he drooled the details. "S'a really pretty book," he said. "Illuma- illus- nice drawings of archways around the landscapes. But we don't want to talk about books, right?"
It never stops amazing me how many men manage to simultaneously think that I'm beautiful and that I'm their type. I suppose more of them than you'd think like muscular arms and hollow cheeks. I've been told, too, that my hair looks like a makeup brush. I've never seen one, so maybe that's a compliment.
"No, we don't," I said. "Othala and I have some errands to do - isn't that right, Othy? - and you need your rest."
For those of you over the century mark, Othala Coldrune needs no introduction. In those days, she had condensed her essence to the finest size, three feet long from tail-tip to nose-tip, but the strain of such concentration took its toll. Before I was born, she was halfway to senile, and now - well, there are good days. For tales of nostalgia, though, there's no better drake.
Othala squinted up at me with lapis blue eyes, brow-ridges sliding in like purple hills. "No, Rwynal - he has errands to do and we need our rest."
