Obsidian

"How do you want it?" Allie asked, pot hovering.

"Just black, please." I reply.

I curled my hands around the battered, chipped mug, and felt the warmth spread as she topped off my coffee. I sat in silence, eyes closed, for a few moments, relishing the heat and scent of life in a cup. After a time, I opened my eyes to find Allie staring at me, eyes sparkling with anticipation. I raised an eyebrow at her and she unleashed her torrent.

"What kind is it?" "Is it nice?" "Can I see it?" "Can I hold it?" she rattled off, without a breath in between.

I allowed the torrent to ebb without answering. She was practically shaking from excitement. Fifteen years of the same questions, the same reactions and the same result at the end.  I thought of the newly hatched whelp taking up residence in the concrete-walled room off the kitchen. The "dungeon" Allie called it, served as nursery for a new dragon every year. As such, it was very well insulated from fire, screeching and large swipes of hooked claws. It was not uncommon to have guests over past feeding time and none were the wiser to the havoc being raised just opposite a very unassuming looking door next to the fridge.

"Allie," I began, "you know the answers to most of those questions. Whelps are ridiculously hard to predict. He's only 48 hours old, he's angry about everything, spooky about most things and already highly effective with his torch." I stroked my right eyebrow, or lack thereof, remembering my first encounter with the little punk.

"Okay, fine, then what kind is he?" she prodded again.

"An Obsidian, they have a tendency to be a little more work than most other dragons so I'm not sure when you'll get to see him, or if you'll get to hold him."

She sighed, dramatically. I knew her retort before she spoke it. It had been the same for 15 years. The entire length of my tenure raising dragons for Villhollen, the ancient realm I was descended from. My family had been banished from the realm a thousand years ago, but still made to serve by training up their mounts. Our large piece of land in North Dakota held a portal, merely for dragon transport to and from and did not appear to anyone that did not know of its existence.

"What is the point of having a best friend that keeps dragons for pets, if I don't even get to flaunt it?"

"A. Definitely not pets. B. Just be happy that you get to see them at all. It's actually against the Pledge for anyone outside of Villhollen or their descendants to know of the dragons or their caretakers."

We finished up our visit, Allie said her good-byes and left me to another day of dragon-rearing. I grabbed a pound of ground lamb out of the fridge and entered the "dungeon". I was immediately assaulted with a brain-piercing shriek and a cone of blue flame directed at my face. Angry little asshole, aren't you? I thought, as the comically small dragon whelp scrambled across the stone floor, growling vehemently as he went. He was darker than shadow at this age. His wings would not get their red undertone for six months, but his eyes shown predatory yellow, like a large cat. In the sun his glass-like scales would create rainbows of color, but he would not be safe to let outside for a while yet. As it were, the taming room was kept dark for several weeks after hatch, as dragons had been reared in caves for millions of years and introducing a young one to light too early could create issues.

Obsidian dragons were the toughest a caretaker could be assigned. They were smarter than other types, and twice as likely to fry you as look at you. Once their flame grew bigger than six inches, they could be quite detrimental. The first week in their taming was the most important, as they needed to learn that the person bringing the food was not actually the food. I sat cross-legged on the floor and held out a small piece of meat.

"Come now, Bane, settle down and have some food." I smiled at the name that had just come to me. The name I chose did not matter in the long run, this dragon would live for hundreds of years, alongside his chosen warrior, and would be renamed at the time of their meeting, something regal or fear-inspiring, no doubt.

Now though, he was mine and Bane certainly felt appropriate. Suddenly, two yellow eyes appeared in front of me, glinting with anticipation. Good grief, two days old and already as stealthy as any grown predator. I thrust my handful of meat toward the eyes, thankful his teeth would not come in for a few more days. Bane sniffed the proffered meat cautiously, his pupils dilated and as he opened his mouth to grab it, I snatched my hand back and said loudly, "GENTLE!"

His eyes snapped to mine, and the shock of my shout set him back on his heels. Thousands of years living in peace with people had instilled a basic knowledge of language in his genetic makeup. He paused momentarily and I offered the bite again. He gingerly stretched his neck out, body staying still, and lightly picked the meat from my fingers. As he savored the bite, his eyes stayed on me, watching me warily. It was always difficult to maintain the balance of a relationship between person and dragon. The dragon had to be made to understand and protect people but not so trained that it lost the ability to use its own reasoning and logic in each situation. Most whelps required a day or two of training to eat from the hand before they could move on to the next skill. I grabbed another handful of meat and held my hand towards the shifting eyes. I braced for the lurch I was sure to come and was instead rewarded with another soft retrieval from my fingers.

Fluke my mind interjected. I repeated the exercise and again Bane took the bite easily. I decided to test his intelligence a bit by dividing the remaining food into two piles. I placed on pile on the ground directly in front of the little black dragon. His eyes rested on my face a moment before he greedily plunged in. As he finished, he looked at me expectantly. I took a small bite from the remaining pile and held out. I wanted to test that he could already determine the difference between eating from the ground and eating from hand. He paused to contemplate the image in front of him, and again, retrieved the bite cautiously. I decided to reward Bane with the remainder of the lamb and got up to leave him to his own mind for a while.

I shut the heavily re-enforced door with a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. It had been a long time since I had worked with such a seemingly intelligent whelp. All dragons were highly intelligent, more so than the humans that had written them into lore centuries prior, but to have one learn its first lesson so quickly was rare. It had been a legend in my family that one day, we would raise a dragon so well, we would be welcomed back to Villhollen and regain our place in our home realm. It was a dream to return. Although Earth was all my family had now for a millennium, an ancient part of my heart yearned to return. I sat at the kitchen table in my large, unassuming looking house in Walhalla, North Dakota and allowed myself to daydream of Bane acting as my chauffeur through the portal to take my place on my family’s ancient lands. A girl can dream, right?