Part 12. Impressions - From Morning Fog to Dust Storms.
"Where do you plan on going, Jack?" Tasrin had asked him.
"I don't know." he had answered, fool that he was: "Maybe someplace warmer."
"I know just the place." Tasrin had said, "I like you, me and you we are much the same, we're on the same level." And that, that had gotten him here, knee-deep in boiling sand with a burning wind howling around them while the air around them danced from the heat and drought.
"Get a plant!" he had said. God damned! What did Tasrin took him for? A treehugger? "They make great friends."
Everyone was crazy around here. Tasrin had been the only other sane person around... that is until that wicked woman and her minion shrink had gotten their claws upon the commander.
Two hands touched his back and soon Jack was pulled down by Luca. Getting up, Jack freely let out curses, kicked the Italian lover boy and started demanding an explanation.
"I waz looking at the preetty laedy." Luca  said with his annoying Italian accent, dusting the sand from his clothes, and still looking at Salla, the third in their company.
The brown-haired, chocolate-skinned woman threw her hands in the air and sighed deeply. "For the last time, Loverboy: You're getting on my nerves. I don't need a knight in shining armour and I certainly don't need you to bring me flowers."
"Only becauz there are no to be found around here." Luca said, flashing a mouth filled with white teeth in a charming smile, "If we were still on ze baze, I would show you Amore like you have never had before."
Disgusted Salla turned away and started walking again. She wondered how much longer they would need to walk around here before Jack finally decided the place was right to hatch a dragon. He had been formally put in charge and she could do nothing about it. Luca running around her, commenting on her pretty ass didn't help either.
Salla looked up and saw Luca running toward her, his arms swaying in what he must think was an enchanting way. In one sudden reflex she brought up her right fist and punched him on the nose, while she kicked his feet from under his body.
Luca, his ears ringing, did not know what had happened and why he was on the floor. Struggling to get up, sweating even more from being on the hot sand he looked at Jack, applauding for some reason.
"Wonderful! Encore!"
"What? What hapened?" Luca asked.
"You ran against my fist and lost."
Jack broke down laughing and muttered: "I like her. She's funny for a woman." before trailing off in laughter again. 
Salla, her eyes blazing, turned toward Jack and said: "Do you have anything to add?" She would not let him make fun of her. She knew all too well how men grouped together against women and she was not really looking forward to having any of that shit now.
"Just that this seems like the perfect place to hatch a dragon, blessed with Luca's blood and all." Jack smiled viciously.
Jack walked past Salla and Luca, pushing the latter back to the sand, reaching for an egg from their backpacks. Turning around he looked for the little bit of blood Luca had spilled and placed the egg upon it with a big smile on his face.
"What if that hatches an Italian?" Salla asked innocently.
"God no!" Jack called out, trying to get his egg away from the spot, but rolling over the sand, he ended up holding not an egg, but a hatchling into his arms. A red-coloured male desert hatchling that was eagerly licking his nose with a long pink tongue.
"Can I have some more blood? It tasted spicy."
Luca turned pale and felt his knees shudder at the thought of spending nights with this dragon... nights when he might sleep and it was awake. He suddenly felt cold in the heat.

***

Salla sat gazing into the night next to the campfire. She had guard duty this last part of the night. She did not mind much, she was just happy they had passed into Arawn territory yesterday. The days were becoming pleasantly humid and they had already had some rain. Of course the heat hadn't gone and tomorrow they would wade into the first canals of Arawn where she assumed all kind of surprises might be waiting for them. Bugs, spiders, some stray scorpions left from the desert... Oh the pleasantness of military missions.
But this time they actually gained something from it. She looked at Zand, the desert sleeping peacefully next to Jack and wondered what kind of dragon Luca would hatch. They had decided long before they had reached the desert who would hatch where. Well, she had just planted her name on the mountains and no-one had objected. Probably because Jack wanted a Desert and Luca would not put anything in her way. 
Suddenly she noticed the Italian struggling with his blanket, tossing and turning, pulling and nearly tearing it to shreds.
"No! No!" he called, his accent strangely absent, "Don't eat me! No I don't taste like pizza! Why do you lick me?" she started whimpering: "Stop licking me!" he called and then sat up right, his eyes opened in fear.
Two big yellow eyes looked at him from the shadows, two dark eyes full of hunger and wildness. Luca crawled closer to the fire, away from the dragon.
"Nightmare?" Salla asked casually, startling him away from the fire again.
"It's a conspiracy." he whispered.
"I can't help but notice," Salla said, "that your accent is gone."
"What?" Luca asked dazed, "Oh that? I only do that to annoy Jack."
"It annoys everybody. Maybe you just have a deadwish."
"I can't stop now. Jack would kill me just to get back to me for fooling him this long. And with that dragon... Luca shuddered. Hell no, I'm waiting till I get one of my own to make sure I'm safe."
"Hurry." Salla said, "Or I'll do the dirty work for him."

***

Luca slapped his neck and felt a prick on his arm. He slapped his arm and felt another mosquito draw blood on his shoulder. He looked at his hand and was pleased to see blood and the squashed body of a tiny insect: "Yes! I killed one!" he said, making a happy jump in the air.
"And got stuck by a dozen." Jack said.
"A hundred more to go." Salla said, "And maybe then you'll have killed all of them that drank your blood." She sighed, "There must be something to keep them off of us. Isn't their anything else to suck dry around here?"
"Nothing with minimal intelligence would stay here." Jack said, looking at Luca with a look that said he thought the other lieutenant was mad to even consider it. 
"Just give me an egg and I'll plant it down here." Luca said, reaching into his backpack and dropping the egg unfriendly into the mud at the edges of the canals... soft mud, but radiating a stench at being disturbed that would drive even the mosquitoes away. Sadly, it didn't have that effect on Jack.
Smiling a bit at his joke, Luca turned and looked right into the eyes of a fuming Jack who had been caught by the splashing blobs of icky stuff that had sprang away when the egg had hit the ground. 
Ducking, Luca thought his only rescue was to run and not stop until Jack got tired. Looking around frantically Luca tried to look for a means of escape, but there really weren't any openings into the jungle. Closing his eyes, Luca prayed it would be over soon.
When the punch he was expecting didn't come, he carefully opened one eye, and then a second. "Where am I?" he asked.
"Safe." a voice, sounding strangely familiar, said. "I took you away from that angry man that wanted to kill you."
"Where are they?" he asked, He didn't like Jack, but they were better company than being stranded in the swamp. 
"Get down here!" Jack called.
Luca looked down and saw Jack and Salla standing below him, looking up at his high perch in a tree. Jack was fuming and Salla didn't look very pleased either... the only thing that could have been worse, were to have a swarm of mosquitoes to attack him now. Hey... there were no mosquitoes. How had that happened?
"I was hungry, ok?" his dragon - Kikker he knew - said.
"I don't mind at all, Kikker."
Luca turned to Jack and called: "If you promise not to kill me I'll come down!"
"I have every right to kill you! Come down or I'll come get you!"
"Just cool down you two!" Salla called angry too, "I just want to get away from all these leaches and mosquitoes before I run dry."
"Fine." they muttered both and Luca suddenly was down beside them, with Kikker standing slightly behind him.
"Look! I impressed a..."
"Frog. Let's go." Jack said, "We've wasted enough of our time here."

***

Leaving the swamp, they had made Kikker teleport to the mountains as soon as they had sprang into view. Though the swamp had been a little insecure, he had managed to get them quite close. Jack on the other hand, had had a rather hard landing so he had insisted on flying Zand from now on. Salla really didn't care. She was the last to still need to bond and she felt more than ready to return to the base for a comfortable bed and a good tasting breakfast for once.
She looked around, sucked her finger to determine the wind direction... sniffed the air and said: "Great! We don't have to go any further."
"Ehmmm...." Luca said, "Did that have any point?"
"Now you can say I looked long and hard to find the perfect spot to hatch an egg." she looked at him with a look in her eye that told him to not try that nonsense on her. The mountains were the mountains. Every rock is the same, hence the egg should not be picky.
She placed her egg and waited... and waited, tapping her feet.
"Maybe we should go a bit further." Jack asked carefully.
"We won't." she said: "Hatch!"
The egg suddenly burst in a thousand pieces.
"It all comes down to authority and making sure they know who's boss."
"Me right?" the hatchling asked, coming from her egg, all grey and blue with long hair, feathered wings and a single horn growing from her forehead.
"Hmm, I would have said me."
"I can't really agree to that."
"Aradne..." Salla said threatening.
"Salla." the dragoness said in the same tone, not budging one bit.
"Ok!" Jack said, "Let's take that frog ride and get out of here."
"Before you two cause an avalanche." Luca added, "Kikker?"
"Ready." the frog answered, "Are they listening?"
Two sets of eyes, one pair brown, the other icy blue turned to the swamp dragon and tried to kill him with their gaze.
"Ok.... they are..." the swamp said, taking a few steps to the side where he hid behind Luca's legs, "Are they calm yet?"
"I am calm." Salla said.
"I've been reasonable." Aradne answered, "I want to see this base you talk about."
"Go! Hurry!" Jack called to Kikker, who winked them out before the two could decide to start fighting again.

Continue to Part 13

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