Robin McKinley - Dragonhaven

Sadie didn't disintegrate nearly as much as most people and she pulled herself together really fast. Maybe it's the midwife trip. Which isn't to say she didn't have a rough time. Everyone does . She shook like a leaf and Martha had to hold her up when she saw her first dragon — lying just outside the cave mouth of Dragon Central. She — Valerie (Vhaaaaaahhhhreeeeee) — recognized Sadie as a new human and raised her head only a very little and very slowly, and didn't move the rest of herself at all, at first, till Sadie stopped clinging to Martha and at least half stood on her own feet again. And then Valerie unwound that long neck, which is one of the things dragons do, you're even used to how big they are, and then it's like that day Bud came to fetch me when his wings seemed to unfurl hundreds of miles: when they stretch their necks out toward you the neck goes on and on and on like the yellow brick road and however many times you've seen it you're briefly not sure if there's maybe a wicked witch involved this time after all.

Valerie brought her head about ten feet from us and Sadie gallantly held her ground. I went up to human-arm's length of her — it's no wonder I'm always surprised how big I am with other humans because I'm so used to being bug-sized next to a dragon — and she lifted her lip in what was now standard-dragon invitation to known-human-friend for a chat, and I put my hand there and she said something like, Hmmmm ? which meant, more or less, A new one, huh? and I said yes, and Valerie said something like, And there's a purpose to this one, a different purpose, a new purpose? and I rubbed my hand over my face in the basic human "arrrgh" gesture and said something like z1k09&dflj;kgo*&^vx+iueaiiiimmbjdcudpf!!!! because this was so way beyond my powers of communication, and Valerie "laughed" and said, You'd better talk to Bud. (I don't know how the dragons managed to pick up what I call him, but I knew the dragon "word" — the tiny mind-spasm they used to name him to me wasn't his dragon name, and it felt like Bud . . . but that's more stuff I can't explain. They call Gulp Gulp to me too, and Lois I think is Lois, even in Dragonese.)

The two of us other humans each had a hand under one of poor Sadie's arms and we were both saying, Look, are you sure you're okay, you don't have to do this, you don't have to stay. It's hard on us old timers too, watching a newbie go through the initiation hazing and of course in this case we felt guilty because it wasn't her idea, we'd asked her to come. But she was saying, No, this is fascinating, this is amazing, don't you dare take me away, wow, I never imagined. . .

We got her down the long first tunnel and into the hearth-room, and she met Bud and Gulp and Lois. She had to sit down — there are a couple of decent human-chair-sized rocks near the hearth, with hollows where your bottom goes, full of shed scales: I had a furniture-moving party with a couple of dragons a while back — but even though she was a little floppy her eyes were obviously focusing as she looked around, and she didn't throw up or pass out or anything, which, trust me, is very good for a first timer. Martha did the out-loud version of why we were there with the hand gestures, which was as much for Sadie's benefit (yes we do talk to them, the rumors are true) and then I put my hand inside Bud's lip and tried not to shriek at him, and he did the dragon equivalent of murmuring "there, there" and the funny thing is I actually did feel a little comforted.

It sort of seeped in, the "there, there" — like the answer-feeling, like trying to find out the dragon word for "rock." It was like the misery was a specific quantity, like forty bales of hay, and someone had coolly backed in with a large truck and smuggled thirty of them away. When I looked at Martha she was wearing the same fragile haven't-smiled-in-a-long-time smile that I could feel on my face.

Sadie went really quiet when we got back to Farcamp though and I made coffee and offered the aspirin and thought about feeling better, and Martha held Sadie's hands like you might a lost little girl's (while the person at the info booth puts out an all-points for Mom and Dad over the loudspeaker). You could see Sadie kind of coming back to herself and the first thing she said was, "Light. . . we're going to have to do something about having enough light." And the second thing she said was, "You're going to have to give me a job, you know, if this gets out, they'll have my license off me so fast it'll leave tread marks."

Martha managed not to look at me triumphantly, but I said, or rather squeaked, "What if something goes wrong?" Sadie barely glanced at me — she was deep in thoughts of practical planning — and said, "Have a helicopter standing by, of course. You don't have to tell it what it's standing by for, do you?" Which in the new Smokehill was true, we didn't have to. We hadn't told the pilot why we were taking Sadie out here, for example. Mostly we still make everybody go the old slow route, including ourselves. But as soon as Martha got too big to make the hike she'd need the helicopter to get out here anyway. Anyone not on the Smokehill grapevine would assume it would whisk her away if she went into labor. Avoiding the question of why she'd want to be joggling around in a chopper going to Farcamp at all.

"It's still a long flight to the Wilsonville hospital — longer to Cheyenne," I said, failing to be reassured.

Sadie came back from wherever she was, and paid attention when she looked at me. "Yes. But I can minimize the risks as much as anyone outside a big hospital and all its equipment can. And after that, Jake, I'm sorry, but you have to make the choice."

I looked at Martha, but I already knew I'd lost. I didn't like it but in the end I believed Martha's vote counted more than mine.

So that was that. But do I think Bud. . . yeah, yeah, I would think Bud did something. But . . . once you're kind of used to answer-feelings, to getting your answer as a kind of slow leak . . . once the headaches have softened you up and made you spongy, so you can soak up all kinds of stuff, like pancakes in maple syrup (which is the nicest image I can think of, since spongy doesn't sound too great), I don't know . . . but I don't know how I let it go, even if I did think Martha's vote counted more. Justice and fairness don't mean shit when you're in love and scared to death. And I knew Martha wasn't dumb enough not to be worried. But I've told you why I named Bud Bud in the first place. He does kind of have that effect. Maybe Martha and I should have gone out there first thing and told him all about it at the beginning.

And once Martha had won there was no stopping Katie. Bud has to have done something to Dad. Dad never gives up, once he's made up his mind.

And then, about five weeks before Martha was due and nine weeks before Katie was, Gulp's babies made their first public appearances. I'd walked past Zenobia on door duty at Dragon Central and even my stupid thick human radar could pick up the excitement, but I didn't know what it was about till I rounded the corner into the big hearth-space and there were six small greenish and blackish blobs making slow lurching forays over the more-or-less level floor to one side of the fire — they're so (comparatively) small still at that age that it takes a lot of dragons staring at them to make you realize they're not just odd fire shadows, which is your first thought, but in that case why are all the dragons staring — ? Oh. . . . Gulp had made herself into a half-crescent and the open side was toward me. Lois was a rusty-pink gleam beside her, and I realized one of the blobs was sitting between her forefeet. Which is when I figured out what they were.