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London 1691
James was studying very hard for his upcoming test. He needed to make Hennessey proud and so, he was focused on his book.
He saw Thomas every weekend. It was a nice time to share, and also let him study other kinds of things: chess, Spanish language, French language, tea manners, accountability, etc. But this time, Thomas was jealous of the book that was stealing James from him.
“I don’t suppose you’ll take your eyes off the book for quite some times, yes?” the young lord said, and yet he didn’t get an answer. Thomas sighed, and then noticed the ribbon on James’ hair.
When the sorcerer found the dragon, it was attacking a grape.
This was only possible because the dragon was not much larger than a grape itself, but she still had to do a double take to be sure the object it was fighting with such animosity was in fact inanimate.
She crouched so that her eyes were level with the top of the table and squinted at it. The dragon sank its tiny fangs into the grape’s skin and gave a great tug, succeeding only in throwing it and the grape into a backwards tumble. The tiny green reptile rolled to a stop with its whole body wrapped around the grape and shook its head ferociously, managing to pull its teeth out but also launching the grape across the table. It gave a mighty roar of anger (about as loud as a human clearing their throat) and stalked after it, tail swishing dangerously.
“Do you need help?” she offered.
The dragon froze mid-prowl and whipped its head around to look at her, looking so offended she almost apologized for asking.
“I mean, I could peel it for you, if that’s the problem.” She wasn’t sure it was getting the message. One could never tell how much human language these little creatures picked up by hanging around the magic labs. Some understood only such essentials as “scat!” or “oh fuck, that sure did just explode”, while others could hold entire conversations — if they deigned to interact.
This one looked like it was deciding whether she was worthy. Finally, it sniffed daintily and flicked its tail, scales clacking together. “Little monster is my prey, and you can’t have it. Found it first. Will devour it!”
“Oh, sure,” she agreed. “But you know it’s a grape, right?”
This was the wrong thing to say. It glared at her and then bounded away to the other end of the table, where it slithered up to the grape and pounced on it.
Grape and dragon promptly rolled off the edge of the table.
The sorcerer quickly went around to that side, alarmed that it would be stepped on. The labs were bustling with shoppers stopping by to watch demonstrations this time of day, and a small dragon wouldn’t be easily visible on the blue and green tiled floor.
“Horrible! Dirty!” The tiny dragon was screeching at the top of its lungs, holding onto its prey for dear life. It would have been hard to hear anyway, with all the noise of the labs, but with the sorcerer’s diminished hearing it took several seconds to locate the screaming creature.
She scanned the pattern of the tiles for it and sighed. “Oh, hold on, we mopped this morning.” She cupped her hands around it and deposited it into her skirt pocket, an indignity the dragon endured only with more screaming.
“An outrage! Put me down!”
“Shh,” she advised. Lab workers were strongly discouraged from bringing creatures into the back rooms, which was where she was heading, picking her way through the crowded front lab.
“Fuck pockets!” her pocket responded.
“Oh, you can curse. Wonderful.”
The dragon seemed to take this as an actual compliment. “Am multitalented. Can also compose poetry.”
“Really? Can I hear some?”
“No. For dragon ears only.” It sounded viciously pleased to hold this over her head. The bulge in her pocket rearranged itself, and she thought it might be trying to gnaw on the grape.
She felt herself smiling even as she tried to squash her mouth into a straight line. She liked this little bad-tempered thing, even though its spiky feet were digging into her thigh.
In the much quieter kitchen of the back rooms behind the lab, she transferred the wriggling, scaly handful from her pocket to the table. The dragon hissed out a few more insults as it got up and straightened itself out, but its jaw fell open when it finally took in its surroundings. She’d set it down next to the fruit bowl.
“There you go. Food mountain.”
The dragon’s shock didn’t last long. Abandoning the grape, it scraped and scrabbled its way up the side of the bowl and from there onto an apple, its claws leaving tiny puncture marks as it hiked to the top of the arrangement. “Food mountain!” It repeated, its gleeful crowing much clearer and almost sing-song without having to compete with the noise of the crowd.
She watched it turn in a circle, surveying the feast. “But… cannot eat it all,” it observed after a while, crestfallen. “Human-sized. Big shame.”
“Don’t you have nest-mates who can help you with it?” she asked. She had assumed not, from the way it had apparently been foraging for food on its own, but she needed to be sure she’d found a loner.
“No nest. No mates. No nest-mates. You’re rude.” It flopped down ungracefully, wings spread out flat on the apple like it was trying to hug the entire much-larger fruit.
She gave it a moment to be dramatic, and then offered it the grape, minus the peel. “You seem to have a good grasp on human-speak.”
It grabbed the grape without so much as a thank you. “Yes. Have composed poetry in both Dragonese and Humanese. Not for humans to hear, though.” Bragging cheered it up a little.
“You mentioned. I can’t hear very well, anyway.” She pulled up a stool and sat down. “Actually, I’ve been looking for a helper.”
“An assistant,” it said, apparently showing off its Humanese. “An attendant. An aid.”
She watched it bury its snout in the grape, juice dribbling down onto the apple it sat on. “Yes. A hearing aid. How would you feel about having a job?”
It smiled craftily. “Would feel positively, if job comes with chocolate chips.”
“It could,” she said, grinning. She had some friends who employed bird-sized dragons as messengers, but this was the first time she’d heard of one negotiating its salary for itself. “It certainly could. What’s your name?”
“Peep,” said Peep. “It is self-explanatory.”
“Don’t worry, I got it.”
Peep expressed its doubt that humans ever got anything, but she thought the tiny, prickly creature might be warming up to her.
Thomas was scrubbing his hands again. He had taken to scowling down at his hands whenever they entered his eye-line and it made James’ heart break a little more each time. He would come in from the garden and stand at the sink, scrubbing with the bristles of a brush until his hands were red and sensitive. Some days he bit at his fingers as though that might rid him of the callouses that had formed there from hard years of labour and toil
“I used to have such good hands,” Thomas murmured one evening. He had trimmed and cleaned his nails, scrubbed any residual dirt from the sketching he had spent the day doing, and sat beside the fireplace in the evening with a scowl on his lips. “I was a fucking Lord once and now- now I’m calloused and broken and I can hardly hold a pencil without it shaking-”
James stopped him with a kiss to his cheek. “You’re all you once were,” he whispered, “changed, yes, but still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago.”
James took him to bed and showed him how much he loved him, longed for him, and let Thomas curl up into the space between his arms as they slept.
In the morning he went out into town and only came home when he found what he was searching for. Hours in the hot American sun, trawling through every apothecary and healer’s shop, every old woman’s pantry open for the market, every inch of the town until he had three pounds less and one jar of coconut oil more.
When he got home that evening Thomas was gazing out of the window as he often did. There were still many days he found it hard to speak or be social and he spent those days looking at the vast open space between their cottage and the ocean. James shut the front door, toed his boots off, and placed the bag of fresh meat and vegetables on the side as he made his way to Thomas’ side.
“I have something for you,” he said softly. Thomas looked up at him with a clearer look than James had hoped for. “A gift for your hands.”
He took Thomas’ left hand in his own and brought out the little jar, dipped his fingers in and worked the solid paste into a softer and more malleable form. The smell of coconuts filled the room.
“What is it?” Thomas asked, curiosity beating his melancholy as it usually did.
James began to massage the oil into the palm of Thomas’ hand, working from the centre out to the gnarled and calloused knuckles and fingertips in smooth motions. “Coconut oil,” he answered, “Madi showed me it’s uses when her skin became coarse at sea. It is a miracle worker.”
Thomas hummed and sighed, relaxing as James worked. “It smells delicious… can you eat it?”
“Yes, I suppose you can. Though it’s rather costly, I’d rather use it on you than put it in a pan…”
They lapsed into silence and James switched from Thomas’ left hand to his right. When he finished he brought each finger to his lips to kiss the tips, pressed more kisses to each knuckle and finally to the back of each hand. He whispered “I love you” into each kiss and let the sound of Thomas’ hitching breath wash over him.
Thomas’ hands were more stable as he sketched that night. He smiled at the paper on the table and found joy in the act, true joy, for the first time since he had become a free man. James nearly wept at the sight.
The next night James put the little jar on the table and knelt at Thomas’ feet. “Here, take your sock off,” he asked. Thomas did and James rubbed the marvellous oil into the misshapen jut of his ankle bone where it had been broken and set wrong many years ago. Thomas sighed and relaxed, making small contented sounds when James moved to take each of his hands again and work the oil into the skin.
“Soon you’ll have hands as smooth as a maidens,” James said softly.
Thomas laughed, tears in his eyes, and kissed him soundly. “Thank you,” he whispered, “God, thank you.”
They kissed again before James continued his work.
Meg's Mumbles 