Timenall & the Captured Gryphon - Chapter Six

Timenall was having a dream, a lovely dream, in which Weirim was nuzzling his mane and then took to licking his toes. It tickled and he opened his eyes. It took him a moment to realize Farloft was leaning over him from behind, truly licking his toes. Damn!

Timenall sprung to his feet and scrambled out of the sleeping pit. “What do you think you are doing?” He asked in an affronted tone. 

Farloft came to a sitting position in the pit. The boughs cracked below his weight. “They have been oozing all night. I just thought a little…”

“A little what?” Timenall almost shouted, his feathers practically standing on end. “I’m sorry if I led you to think that if we shared a bed…”

“Wait!” Farloft huffed coming to his feet. “You didn’t think I was…”

“Of course you were…”

“Was not!” Farloft denied in a shout. Smoke curled from his left nostril.

Timenall cringed. His ears laid back. The feathers of his main flatting a bit in fright. The dragon was twice his size. Why had he accepted the young dragon’s invitation?

“You obviously did not inherit any magic from your mother or your paws would have been better by this morning,” Farloft stated in a huff. “I was just being ‘Friendly.’ That’s ‘dragonic friendly’ in tending to them. Look for yourself,” he grumbled and pointed with a tilt of his muzzle.

Timenall looked down at his paws. Sure enough, they were no longer bloody. Instead, they appeared to be only slightly swollen and pink. He lifted one up to have a closer look.

“They’re scabbed over,” he exclaimed.

Farloft shook his head. “I can’t believe you thought I was…That is just plain weird,” he snorted as he stepped out of the pit and over to the water dish. “Your fur is sticky,” he said in a funny voice as through his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He took a drink, swished it around in his mouth and spat it out. There was a hunk of fur in the water. “Last time I waste my magic on you.” 

Timenall was still inspecting his paws. It was marvelous, like a week’s worth of healing had already taken place.

“What’s in your spit?” He finally asked Farloft. 

“Magic,” he answered as though it were as wildly known as the sun came up in the east. “I can’t believe…” Farloft continued to grumble.

“Wait,” Timenall said and held up a paw. There wasn’t hardly any pain in them this morning. “Let’s get past the whole misunderstanding part.” He sat down and smoothed out his feathers. “I apologize. I didn’t know what you were doing.”

“I thought you said you had a dragon for a mother,” Farloft was still fuming. He huffed sending a light puff of smoke out that rose around his face. “Didn’t she ever heal you?”

Timenall pulled his gaze away from his paw and up to the young dragon. “No…Can all dragons do this?”

Farloft’s brow crinkled. He really wasn’t sure. He just assumed they could. Maybe his clan was different then other dragons in that respect. Now that he knew the hybrid’s mother had never administered to him in such a fashion, he could see how he got the wrong impression.

“I thought they could,” Farloft answered in a calmer tone. “It’s a gland in our throats. I tap into it and it secrets something that has healing properties. My mother and father both tended to me when I was young.”

Timenall stared at the dragon. “You are quite remarkable, my young friend.” He stood up and put his weight on all four feet equally. He could tell the front two were injured, but not near to the painful extent of last night. “Thank you.”

Farloft frowned and huffed again, releasing a trickle of smoke from his nose. “And you have six toes on each foot. Took time working around those boulder sized paws.”

Timenall raised a paw and flexed the toes out at all angles. “They are rather large, but I have always been proud of them. Used to give me extra traction,” he lamented.

Farloft shook his head.

“Ah, come on now,” Timenall coaxed and came up beside the young dragon. He rubbed his own furry side the full length of Farloft’s. His head came to rest under Farloft’s chin. “Give us a dragonic lick of friendship,” he teased.

Farloft brought his tail around and swatted the hybrid on his flank with a resounding thump. “No dragonic anything for you. And today we make you your own sleeping pit. I’m not sharing mine tonight.”