Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

But if she did, she'd probably have another nightmare.

Her groan summoned Pony from his attached bedroom. "Good morning, domi."

Eyes still closed, she grunted at him. "It's not fair to expect me to be polite before I'm fully awake. Where's Windwolf? Did he get back safely last night?"

"He was needed at the Faire Grounds this morning. He took everyone except Stormsong with him."

"How is Stormsong?"

"Her leg bothers her slightly, but she is whole. She is practicing in the swordhall."

That was good news. Tinker heaved herself back up and rubbed a heavy crust of sleep from her eyes. "Gods, I hate saigin. It turns my brain to taffy. What's that for?"

That being one of the sekasha's pistols. While the gun itself was of human make, the blacked tooled leather holster and belt were elfin. Pony laid it on the bed, a coil of dangerous black on the sea of cream.

"Wolf Who Rule wished you to have it."

Oh, yeah, I asked for a gun.

"It is specially made for the sekasha." Pony settled on the bed beside her. "Only parts of it are metal, and those are insulated with plastic, so they don't interfere with our shields. Once you learn magic, it will be important that you don't wear metal."

There was an elaborate system of wood buckles, D-rings and ties to support the weight of the pistol on the hip without metal. In place of a metal snap, the belt maker had used a heavy plastic substitute.

"Is it loaded?"

"Not yet. I thought you would like to get comfortable with it first."

So they played with the gun. Taking it part. Putting it together. Strapping on the holster (although it had a tendency to slide on her long silky nightgown.) Drawing the pistol smoothly. Holding it with both hands to keep it steady. Aiming it. And finally, how to load and unload it.

"Wolf Who Rules wants you to start the basics of the sword fighting," Pony said. "It would be unwise for you to wear a sword until you are able to use it. Guns are simple. Point and pull the trigger."

"I'm fine with that." She had no interest in swords. They relied too much on brute force. At five foot nothing, it didn't matter how smart she was, she wasn't going to win a sword fight with an elf. "Okay. I think I'm ready to face the day."

"In that?" Pony indicated her current nightgown and holster outfit.

"I thought I'd start a new fashion statement." Nevertheless, she started to look for the clothes she had on the day before. She was going to have to do something about clothes. After being kidnapped twice, she was left with only one t-shirt and one pair of carpenter pants. Everything else in her closet was elfin gowns.

Pony guessed what she was looking for. "They took your clothes to be cleaned."

"Oh no." She went to the window and looked out. Beyond the orchard wall was the kitchen garden and the clothes lines. Windwolf's household staff was hanging up the laundry. Her jeans dangled between several pairs of longer legged pants. Her t-shirt? Oh yes, that had been cut to ribbons by the dragon. "Oh pooh."

Well, she could wear a dress and just go clothes shopping. Of course she didn't have any cash in hand, nor did she ever receive the promised replacements for the ID that the oni stole the night she saved Windwolf's life. It could be sitting in her mailbox back at her loft - if the EIA had been so stupid as to mail it out after she was kidnapped by the oni. Oh gods, what if she'd been declared legally dead after the oni 'staged' her death?

She did have Windwolf's entire household at hand. Surely one of the elves was savvy enough to go to the store and buy her clothes. She considered the elves in the garden washing clothes-by hand - in large wooden tubs. Okay, she had clothes at her loft.

Was it a good thing or a bad thing that she was now fashion aware enough to know that those clothes were too scruffy?

Tinker sighed. "I really don't want to run around Turtle Creek in a dress."

" Domi, I would rather wait until we could gather a Hand. It would not be wise for us to go alone."

Tinker wasn't getting the hang of the elfin 'we' despite having Pony at her side every moment for nearly two months. She was thinking of just trotting over by herself and seeing how much the Ghostlands had shrunk. Well, she supposed that could wait.

She used her walk-in closet as a dressing room, stripping out of the gun belt and her nightgown. She considered her informal gowns, called day dresses. She had bullied the staff into taking off the long sleeves, but the dresses still had bodices that accented her chest, tight waists, and flowing skirts. Her choices were sable brown, forest green or jewel red, all in gleaming fairy silk that clung to her like wet paint. The red one, at least, had pockets and a shorter skirt. She had to admit that she looked fairly kicky with her new gunbelt riding low on her hip. She added her polished black riding boots and the ruby jewelry that Windwolf had given her. She practiced drawing her pistol and pointed it at the mirror. "You looking at me? Uh? You looking at me?"

"No, domi, I can not see you." Pony said from the other side of the closet door.

She laughed, holstering the pistol. "Did Windwolf find the monster that attacked me and kill it?"

"No."

"Okay." She came out of the closet. "Since we can't do anything about Turtle Creek, let's focus on the monster."

" Domi, I do not think we should go after the dragon alone."

"Dragon?"

"It was an oni dragon and very difficult to kill."

"Well, yeah, which is why I should figure out how to kill it. The oni probably have more than one. There has to be a way to take down its shields so anyone with a gun can kill it."

Pony looked at her nervously, as if he suspected she was going to hunt down the oni dragon and poke it with sticks.

Tinker felt the need to reassure him that she didn't have anything that radical in mind. "I want to start with Lain; she's a xenobiologist. When you've got a problem outside your field of specialty, you go to an expert."

A flat bed semi-trailer sat parked in front of Lain's stately Victorian mansion. A yellow canvas tarp covered something lumpy. The xenobiologist stood on the trailer, leaning on her crutch, watching Tinker park the Rolls. Something about Lain's face made Tinker suspect that somehow the trailer was her fault.

"I thought you might turn up today." Lain said.

"Well, apparently I need a small army to go back to Turtle Creek, and Windwolf has all the sekasha today except Pony and Stormsong."

Said sekasha had already split up into Blade and Shield. Stormsong had moved off to scout the area as a Blade. Pony trailed behind Tinker, acting as Shield.

"So, I thought I'd come talk to you about the monster that attacked me yesterday." Tinker said. "The sekasha are saying it's an oni dragon."

"Ah." Lain made a sound of understanding. "I suppose I should thank you for your present."

"Present?" Tinker eyed the trailer apprehensively. What had she done now without realizing it?

Lain flipped up one corner of tarp to reveal limp willowy branches. "They told me that you sent it."

The black willow! "He eats the fruit of the tree that walks." Tinker shivered as recognition shivered down her spine. It was just too weird having another part of her dream show up with her name attached to it. "I sent it?"

"That's what they told me," Lain said.

Tinker could remember finding the tree, but she - she didn't order this. Or had she? She turned to Pony. "Did I ask…?" His look of concentration made her realize that she had been so rattled that she was still speaking English; she switched Elvish. "Did I ask to have the black willow brought here?"

"You said you would love to give it to Lain."

That apparently that had been enough of an order for Pony. Tinker really had to keep in mind that the sekasha took her word as law. While she had been smothered in attention, the elves had bound up the long limp branches and sturdy trunk-feet and hauled it to the Observatory hill. Once at Lain's, however, they'd abandoned it - trailer and all.