Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

"I am not sure what the other beast is, but there is no mistake here, this is an oni dragon." True Flame pointed out a four-toed print in the dirt. "The little beast has five claws like the hand of an elf."

Red Knife reported for the sekasha, saying that the cabins were empty of oni and any evidence of what they planned. "There were, though, a hundred oni here only hours ago."

"It is a good thing that we delayed, then." Earth Son earned a sharp look from even his First, Thorne Scratch. "We would have had to face both oni and the dragon at the same time."

Instead both had vanished away after having time to lay cooperative plans.

The dragon tracks led down to the river.

Earth Son made a sound of disgust, eyeing muddy water. "None of us will be able to track it in that."

"If Malice was sent by the oni on Onihida to distract us, then he will circle back to the city and attack." Wolf was glad that Jewel Tears was protecting the enclaves. While the Stone Clan was weak on attack spells, they had the strongest defensive spells. "We should return."

True Flame nodded.

Tinker and Jin found a working computer station and with some jury rigging managed to get her state-of-art camera interfaced with the two decade old systems.

"I recorded about six hours so this is going to take a while." Tinker started the play back.

"…we'll build a dictionary of his words," her recorded voice started out the recording. Cloudwalker had been filming the dragon but having trouble tracking it as it moved through the scrapyard's offices.

"Riki says the dragon's name is Impatience," Tinker said, "but Riki has lied to me - a lot."

Jin attention was on the recording. He nothing but he frowned slightly at this.

"…mmmenananannaaaaaaapoooookaaaammmammamamyyyyyyaaanananammmmoooo…" Impatience rambled on the recording.

"I'm not familiar with the name." Jin paused the recording after another minute of the dragon's monologue. "Dragons usually use a lot of words to say anything. Like 'a pleasantly warm but not too warm, sunny, cloudless, time of the day that isn't dawn but the sun hasn't quite reached its zenith' for good morning. It considered rude to get to the point too quickly. When you talk to a dragon, you're supposed to elaborate as much as possible."

"Dragon Etiquette 101?" Tinker asked.

"Historically, rude tengu are dragon snacks. This dragon, however, is being very to the point. He might come across as impatient to other dragons, which would explain his name."

"So you understand him."

"Yes, so far he's said 'what is this object? Oh, this moves. Ah, it makes light. I wonder how. This part twists. What are these? I see. It does not work without those. Why does it not make light? Have I broken it? It seemed as if it was suppose to come apart. A diagram. I must have them backwards. Ha, ha, ha."

"Yeah, I got the laughing part."

A female astronaut flew into the cabin with tengu grace, "Wai Szi is awake and wants to see the scarecrow."

The tiny tengu woman was awake and looking surprisingly well compared to how awful she had been before. She gasped as Tinker swam into the infirmary. "Oh my, you are here! Oh, look at you! You're so beautiful."

Tinker blushed. As a female elf in a deep jewel red silk dress in zero gee, she was attracting a lot of attention from the crew. "It's the dress."

"Ah, yes, it not so practical in space, is it, my dear? Xiao Chen, can you find her something to wear?"

Xiao Chen had been the crewmember that summoned them to Gracie's side. The tengu female nodded, cocking her head to study Tinker's size before moving off, graceful as a bird in flight.

Jin looked at Tinker as if noticing the silk flowing around her for the first time and then smiled. "I don't know. It's good for morale. At least with the guys."

Tinker smacked him and found herself floating backwards.

He laughed, and caught Tinker before she could hit something. "I am only joking."

"Shoo, shoo!" Gracie shooed Jin away. "I want to talk to her without your noisy squawking."

Jin smiled fondly at his cousin and flew away.

Gracie held out her unbroken hand to Tinker. "Let me look at you." Gracie had tears in her eyes, which Tinker expected, but not the brilliant smile that the fragile tengu bestowed on her. Tinker found herself smiling back. "You've got Leo's eyes and his smile."

"Yeah, I guess. The patented Dufae face."

"I'm so happy to see it. It hurt so much that I hadn't been able to give Leo a baby. It made losing him all the more horrible. He was a wonderful, wonderful man and he was utterly gone."

It occurred to Tinker for the first time how awful to lose your husband-never see him again-and a sudden fear took root in her. What if she couldn't get back to Windwolf? What if she never saw him again?

"There, there, my love." Gracie wiped Tinker's tears away. "We'll get you back to him somehow."

"Yeah, I know, we're working on it." Tinker sniffed.

"Let me see your leg. I know Jin, he probably didn't think to clean that cut. He might be Dalai Lama of the crows, but he's hopeless with first aid."

Gracie deftly took off the bandage, gently cleaned the wound and applied an antiseptic and re-bandaged the cut.

"Are you a medic?" Tinker asked her.

"I'm the ship's xenobiologist," Gracie said.

"You're kidding."

Gracie looked up in surprise, and Tinker found herself talking about Lain, and then about Esme. "Have you told her? I don't think she's realized who you are yet."

Tinker shook her head. "Right now, it's all too weird. I don't even want to think about it. Besides, I'm kind of ticked at her. Not about leaving me. About everyone having to lie to me about it because - I don't know - some strange family stuff. I didn't know the truth for eighteen years. She can not know for a couple of days. I'll tell her later."

Xiao Chen flew into the area, carrying a set of clothes. "These should fit our scarecrow."

"I don't know if I like that nickname." Tinker took the clothes and drifted awkwardly as she checked the pant size against her waist.

Xiao Chen laughed. "I am sorry. Just so long, we did not know your name, just that you were the scarecrow."

"Did tell everyone about your dream?" Tinker asked Gracie.

Xiao Chen, though, answered. "All of us that slept that night shared Wai Szi's dream - that is her ability. She is our dream crow."

"In some ways, we are more bird than human," Gracie said.

"Can you see the future? How am I going to get us out of this mess?"

Gracie shook her head. "Where one person can determine the future, the way is clear, but we're in a tangle of possibilities. Many people can push the future one way or another. This is a time when everyone will determine the end."

Since there were no private places, Tinker turned her back and they pretended to ignore her, talking in Chinese, as she changed. She tried not to feel like they were talking about her. Certainly with the ship falling out of orbit, they had plenty of things to discuss. At least with the dress on, she was able to change panties and pull on her pants without flashing them. The pants were a little loose, but Xiao Chen had included a length of nylon cord to serve as a belt.

Tinker turned back around and pulled on the knotted cord. "I look the part of the scarecrow now."

The tengu laughed.

"I've been greedy." Gracie reached out and squeezed Tinker's hand. "I've kept you here too long. Thank you for letting me see you."

Tinker hugged her goodbye and returned to the task of finding out how to get them back home to Windwolf.

Impatience, it turned out, had been trying to teach her a spell. It incorporated math, something that Elvish spells didn't do, and used magic to manipulate time and space. It took everything she knew and pushed it in a new direction using an entirely new symbol set. Jim translated the words and then, later, the number system that Impatience used but looked mystified by most of what he was saying.