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White Collar WIP: The Chains That Bind Us (2/?)
I think there'll probably be about 5-6 parts to this.
Title: The Chains That Bind Us
Rating/Pairing: PG; gen w/background Peter/Elizabeth
Word Count: 5800 (this part); ~10,000 (so far)
Summary: Fantasy AU in which Peter is a dragonslayer, Neal is a dragon, and Elizabeth is the enchantress who binds him.
Cross-posted: On AO3
Part One can be found here
Part Two
They ended up taking Neal home to interrogate him.
If they stayed in the mine, Peter was worried about being interrupted by a torch-wielding mob at any moment. He wasn't too thrilled about the idea of taking the dragon to his house, either, but at least they'd have some privacy. And after they finished their chat with the dragon ... well. They'd figure out what to do next at that point, he supposed.
The dragon, no more pleased than Peter at the idea of encountering a mob of angry silver miners, offered to show them a different way out of the mine. "I knew it," Peter said. "You do have a secret entrance."
"About to become much less secret," the dragon grumbled.
He led the way. Peter followed, knife in hand and bow slung over his shoulder. Even with the chain suppressing his magic, the dragon was still quite dangerous. Peter had seen how fast he could move. However, whether it was the chain or the threat of the knife or simply some whim of his own, Neal made no attempt to attack them as he led them through a twisting series of passageways. They emerged at last under a star-filled sky, a couple of miles on the opposite side of the village.
"Lived here all my life and I never knew this was here," Peter said, looking around. "How'd you find it?"
"I'm a dragon," Neal said impatiently. "We're good at finding secret ways in and out of places. It's one of the things we do."
"The other ones being stealing things, kidnapping virgins and killing people?"
"You're so judgmental," Neal said.
They extinguished El's candle and kept to the shelter of trees and shrubbery as they made their way back to the village. I can't believe I'm doing this, Peter thought. He'd gone out to kill a dragon; now he was smuggling that same, dangerous dragon into the village where he lived. There were little kids here.
If I have to, I can stop him, Peter thought, slipping his hand into his pocket and feeling the living warmth of the chain.
He felt a wash of utter relief when they reached the neat little cottage that he shared with El without being seen by any of the neighbors -- and without Neal killing and eating any of the neighbors. Once inside their garden gate, he felt safer. There was something about this place that always made his stress and worries melt away. El loved tending her garden, and its neat flowerbeds and tidy vegetable patches were an oasis of peace and tranquility.
... though, at the moment, an oasis of peace and tranquility with a dragon in the middle of it.
Satchmo came trotting up to greet them. Then he caught a whiff of Neal's scent. His hackles went up and he snarled -- Satch was the mildest dog Peter had ever met; he'd never heard Satch growl before -- and then turned tail and fled into the backyard.
"Animals don't get along with my kind very well," Neal explained. "Can't imagine why."
Neal fit through the door easily, though he had to fold up his wings and duck his head. Once inside, he curled up in front of the fire. El had to walk around him and step over his tail as she bustled around putting away the contents of her basket. Peter went to the well in the backyard to fetch a bucket of water to heat for tea, and gave Satch a conciliatory pat along the way.
"I believe there was mention of wine?" Neal said, lazily raising his head. The flames gleamed on his scales, giving him a sinister air.
"Yes," Peter said. "By you. We're not wasting our good wine on you."
"Don't worry, Neal," El said, patting his snout. "I make an excellent cup of tea."
"El, he's a prisoner, not a guest," Peter said impatiently as he stripped off his armor. Hopefully he wouldn't regret it, but the armor was hot and heavy, and he didn't want to sit around in it.
Knife in hand, he sat at the table. He and the dragon eyed one another.
"Let's talk deals," Neal said.
"Yes. Let's." On the walk back, the thought had occurred to Peter that if he planned to go up against a dragon, having another dragon on his side, willing or not, could be useful in a great many ways beyond simply getting information. "The dragon that attacked the silver caravan -- I'd like your help in finding and ... neutralizing it. Him. Her."
"By neutralize, you mean kill." Neal's tail twitched, the serrated tip flicking back and forth.
"Well, yes," Peter said. "Whatever it takes. I mean, that dragon -- and I'm still giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming it isn't you -- murdered three people, and is likely to kill more. I'm not just going to let it walk away."
El put a cup of tea in front of Peter, and slipped one of her larger bowls under the dragon's snout. Neal lapped delicately, like a cat, and then raised his head. "Let's say that I take you up on your offer," he said. "I help you against one of my own kind. What do I get in return?"
That was the awkward question. "We don't kill you," Peter said.
El gave him a disapproving frown. Neal laughed. It sounded like a human laugh, aside from a sibilant undertone. "I think your negotiating skills could use some work."
"Look, you're stealing from us," Peter said. "Even if you didn't take the silver from the caravan, I caught you in the act of stealing from the mine."
The spiny frill on Neal's back bristled. "I'm a dragon. I take what I please. And I've never hurt anyone in your precious mine, or in this valley, at all."
Peter couldn't help noticing that he said nothing about anyone outside the Valley. "Oh really? What about the people who depend on the silver for their livelihood? Without that silver, this town's going to die. The whole Valley will wither and die. Any human who did what you did would have been put to death, as well."
Neal tapped his claws thoughtfully together. His frill ruffled and then lowered.
"What I'm offering you is a far better deal than I'd offer most human criminals. If you help us against the other dragon, I'll let you go afterwards, as long as you promise to go far away from here and never bother us again." Peter wondered if it was worth trying to extort a promise that Neal would return to the lands beyond the Wall, while he was at it, but there was no way he could ever tell if Neal kept a promise like that, so he didn't see any point in bothering.
Neal's frill flattened, and so did his head. "You're asking for a lot of trust, human. How do I know you'll keep your word?"
"How do I know you'll keep yours?"
Neal wordlessly stuck out his foot with the chain on it.
"Yes, and as soon as we remove it, you could burn our fields, kill our cattle, kill all of us. We're both taking a leap of faith, Neal." Peter held out a hand.
Neal stared at it for a moment. Then he held out his forepaw and engulfed Peter's hand in it. Peter had to brace himself not to pull away when the huge claws swallowed his hand, wrist and the lower part of his forearm. Neal's skin was scaly, warm and dry.
"It's a deal," Neal said, "for now," and dipped his snout to lap from the bowl of tea again.
El brought some cold chicken from the cold-storage room, cut off some for herself and Peter, and placed the rest on a plate in front of the dragon.
"So," Peter said. "The other dragon. Do you know him?"
"He uses the name Keller," Neal said. He nipped up the snack that El had offered him in a single quick, dainty bite. "He's dangerous."
"He's a dragon. You're all dangerous."
"More dangerous than me," Neal clarified. "All dragons love metals that glitter --" the blue of his eyes darkened for a wistful moment "-- but Keller cares for it above all things: friends, family, honor."
The idea that any dragons cared about friends, family or honor was news to Peter, but he kept his mouth shut.
"And he likes the terror that he evokes in humans," Neal went on. "He likes to play games, to be admired, to be feared. Right now he is probably resting in his lair, wherever it is. The energy that he spent when he attacked the caravan will take a while to recover."
And right there was a useful bit of information about dragons that wasn't in any of the books that Peter had read: flying, fighting, presumably using their dragonfire wore them out. They weren't invincible fighting machines, and they needed days to recover after a major fight, during which time they were vulnerable. Peter quietly filed this away for future reference.
"So is this a good time to attack him?"
Neal shook his head. "He will be approaching full strength again." He smiled briefly, showing his teeth. "I'm sure he'll be coming to you soon enough."
Great.
"Do you know where his lair is?"
"Did you miss the part where I said wherever it is? No dragon shares that information with anyone, dragon or otherwise. The lair," Neal said with a bit of a growl in his voice, "is where the treasure is. Every dragon guards that lair at all costs."
Peter watched him thoughtfully. "Do you have one?"
"Of course I do. And you will never learn where it is."
I could force him, Peter thought. But it was an ugly thought and he pushed it away with a little shudder. Besides, Neal wouldn't be stealing anything else as long as he wore El's chain. They could deal later with the matter of what he'd already stolen.
"We need a plan," he said, and pointed at the dragon curled up in front of the fire. "You're going to help us come up with a plan."
"Of course I will," Neal agreed calmly. He yawned, showing long jaws filled with very sharp-looking teeth. "Right now, I intend to sleep. I think best when I'm well rested."
Peter sighed. He could already feel a headache coming on. "All right. I suppose I'd better go explain why the dragon that's been robbing the silver mines is now sleeping in my house."
El put a hand on his arm as he rose. "Do you think that's a good idea?"
"What else can I do? It's not as if we can hide him under the rug. Someone's bound to notice eventually."
******
It went over better than Peter had hoped.
At least, they didn't immediately drag him through the streets and string him up.
Hughes, the mine owner, was the one he had to convince. The old miner was as hard as an ingot from one of his forges, not a man who gave trust lightly. But Hughes was one of the most powerful men in the Valley, and the one who'd been most directly affected by Neal's actions so far. And Hughes' word carried a lot of weight around here.
"You say it's not the one that killed my men."
"I believe he's not," Peter agreed. They were outside the smelting furnaces, and the heavy stink of the fires drifted on the dawn air.
"Because it told you so."
"No," Peter said. "Because the facts don't fit. I've been keeping the peace around here for a long time, Hughes. We've been friends a long time. And you know I'm not going to fall for honeyed words without evidence to support them."
"They say dragons can cloud men's minds."
"Not this dragon," Peter said. "My wife has placed a binding on him that renders him incapable of using any of his magic. He can't breathe fire and he can't fly. If the need arises, I can use the magic to control him, though I'd rather not have to. He seems to be cooperating willingly."
Hughes leaned against the wall and looked at Peter flatly. "You can't trust a dragon," he said. "They're pure evil, through and through. It's not their fault, it's just what they are."
"I'm not asking you to trust him." Peter spread his hands. "I'm asking you to trust me. I believe I can keep him under control while he cooperates in finding and killing the dragon that killed your men."
"Then what?"
Peter drew a deep breath. This was the part he'd hoped wouldn't come up, but Hughes was too smart for that, and Peter didn't feel right about lying. "I told him I'd let him go, as long as he left the Valley and never came back."
"You can't possibly mean that."
"I don't know yet," Peter said. "If he plays straight with me, I don't want to be the one to double-cross him."
"What do you think he'll do to you, as soon as your wife releases the binding? Believing the word of dragons is a good way to die."
"We can work out that part out later, then. This isn't the time. From what Neal says, this Keller dragon is going to be back soon, and we need his help."
Hughes studied him for a long moment.
"You're positive that your wife's magic can keep this dragon under control."
"You've known El all her life, and her mother and grandmother before her," Peter said. "Did you ever know any of those women to fail at something they said they'd do?"
A slight smile appeared on Hughes' sharp-edged face.
******
So now there was a dragon living in Peter and El's back garden.
The garden turned out to be a much better place for him than the house. Small though he might be, Neal's length filled the main room of Peter and El's little house from one side to the other. The garden was cool, shady and comfortable, and Neal seemed to enjoy lying under El's roses, idly picking a weed now and then.
Satchmo shunned the backyard and stayed in the house.
"He's terrorizing the dog," Peter complained to El.
"Neal hasn't done a thing to Satch," El said, ruffling the dog's ears. "He's been a perfect gentleman. Satch is going to have to learn to live with him."
"This is temporary," Peter said quickly. "Very temporary. Let's all keep that in mind, why don't we? We do not want a dangerous predator living in our garden for very long."
"At least it'll keep the neighbor kids from getting into my apple tree," El said cheerfully, and at Peter's disbelieving look, dissolved into giggles. She smacked him in the shoulder as she wound down to little chuckles. "Oh, stop making that face. I'm joking. Although he's keeping the rosebushes nicely weeded."
"You realize he's dangerous, right?"
The neighbors certainly did. As word began to spread around town that their dragonslayer had actually brought the dragon home to live with him, Peter and El had a steady supply of irate neighbors stopping them in the street to complain. Some were complaining about the danger; others insisted on the return of small personal items that they believed, against all logic or evidence, that the dragon had stolen. A few die-hard souls even went so far as to knock on their door, but that stopped cold when Neal poked his head around the house to get a better look.
Neal thought it was hilarious. He liked to stretch out his neck, rest his chin on top of Peter and El's garden wall, and watch life go on around the house -- which usually consisted of the neighbors going about their daily business until they noticed him, then screamed and fled.
Peter thought gloomily that at this rate, it was only a matter of time before an armed mob showed up at his door.
But people being people, it only took a day or two for the fear to wear off and interest in the novelty to set in. There was not ever a whole lot that was new and different in the Valley, and having a real live (small, tame) dragon living in Peter and El's garden became a source of fascination. Rather than avoiding the area, people began flocking into the alley behind the house, standing on crates or piles of bricks to see over the wall into the garden.
Neal seemed to be basking in it, although sometimes he came into the house to escape the attention when the attention and notoriety got to be too much for him.
"We ought to charge a fee to look at him," Peter muttered.
Neal overheard him, and looked cheerful at the idea. "That's a great idea. Coins are shiny."
"I was thinking more along the lines of paying for your upkeep."
So far, feeding him hadn't been that much of a problem. Neal wanted to hunt, but there was no way in hell Peter was turning him loose to do that. Peter and El were not wealthy people, but they did keep a small flock of sheep and a couple of cows, inherited from Peter's parents; they leased a plot of grazing land and hired a couple to look after the flock. They'd sacrificed a couple of these animals to Neal's appetite. That wasn't going to last in the long term, though.
Hopefully, though, there wouldn't be a long term. Thus far, Keller hadn't shown up again. There was one part of Peter that could only be glad -- when Keller did show up, death and destruction would follow in his wake -- and yet, if Keller wasn't here, what if he'd gone off to bother some other valley in the mountains, a valley that didn't have its own tame(ish) dragon to help out?
Not that the dragon had been all that much use so far. Peter spent a lot of time in the back garden with Neal, working on plans for taking down Keller. Or, more accurately, being told that most of his plans were stupid and would only get him killed.
"I caught you, didn't I?"
Neal growled softly, low in his throat. "By trickery, in the dark. Keller doesn't hunt in the dark like I do. He attacks in daylight, from above."
"So we come up with a different plan, then."
"If he's gone away, then he's not your problem," Neal pointed out. He was stretched out in the sun, looking comfortable, though he kept idly scratching at the chain with his back foot. "That's a good thing, right? You can go on about your life and --" he cracked an eye open hopefully "-- let me go."
"But he's someone else's problem, then," Peter said. "Because I let him get away."
"Why does it matter to you?" Neal asked, genuinely curious.
"Must be a human thing, I guess."
******
Life didn't stop just because a dragon threatened the Valley. Two days after Neal's capture, Peter was awakened by someone pounding on the door. He was halfway out of bed and reaching for his knife before his brain caught up; his first thought was They finally came for us, because of the dragon.
But instead, it was a mother frightened for her son. The boy had been out watching the flocks, but hadn't come home that evening. They had been searching for him all night, finding nothing.
"What if dragons killed him?" she whispered, casting nervous glances towards the backyard.
"It wasn't dragons," Peter told her, hoping against hope that it was true.
He got her to sit down by the fire, and El plied her with tea, while Peter got dressed and slipped out into the darkness. And almost ran into a dragon; only the white patch at Neal's throat alerted him before he smacked into his resident garden houseguest.
"Neal, whatever you want, I don't have time for it." Two days ago, he never would have believed that if he ever walked into a dragon, he'd simply shove it out of his way and keep going, but that was exactly what he did.
Neal allowed himself to be moved aside in catlike style, then kept pace with him to the garden gate. "Don't be so hasty," he said. "I can help out. For a price, of course." His tail swished back and forth.
"Yeah, right."
"I heard what she wants. I can probably find the human fledgling, if you want me to."
Peter stopped in his tracks. "Say what?"
"By smell," Neal said. "Dragons have a good sense of smell. What, you didn't know that?"
"No, I didn't know that." He studied the dragon in the dim light, wondering what his angle was. Neal never did anything without wanting something in return. "What's your price to help?"
"Shiny things, obviously," the dragon said impatiently. "If she has any jewelry or such, I'll take that, but only if it's real gold or silver. Otherwise, you can fetch me something suitably expensive."
Peter hesitated, remembering the rumors about the dragon stealing necklaces and such, right out of people's bedrooms or locked cabinets. He'd thought it was complete nonsense, but that was back when he'd thought a dragon would be the size of a house, slow and ponderous and huge. Now that he'd actually seen Neal -- small, lithe, fast-moving Neal, capable of squeezing his bulk into impossibly tiny spaces -- it suddenly seemed a lot more likely.
"You really think you can find this kid."
"If he's there to be found," Neal said loftily, "then I can find him. Payment in advance, of course."
"No way. The kid's more important than you getting your shiny things. I'll pay you after you find him."
Neal put up a token resistance, but he seemed pleased enough that he didn't protest very hard. Peter considered that Neal had been separated from his treasure hoard for a few days now; if what they said about dragons and their gold was true, he must be pining for it like a drunk denied his alcohol.
******
The motley crew of farmers and herdboys searching for the lost child were nonplused, to say the least, by the appearance of Peter with an apparently free-range dragon. Peter had to explain over and over again that Neal was under magical control, that he could neither breathe fire nor fly, and that he was no danger to anyone (Peter hoped). Meanwhile, Neal roamed the field, belly-deep in dew-damp grass. Peter couldn't tell if he was actually searching for the boy or simply glorying in being out in the countryside for the first time in two days. All he seemed to be managing to accomplish was terrifying the animals out of their wits.
The thought occurred to him that Neal might take advantage of the opportunity to run for it. The first night, he'd done exactly that, which was when El had introduced Peter to another property of the control chain: it allowed them to find Neal anywhere. They caught up him only about a mile away, outside the town gates, standing with his forepaws on the top rail of a fence and his nose to the wind. Neal had bared his teeth and for a moment Peter thought they might have to use force -- he interposed himself between El and Neal, and got ready to fight. But Neal just sighed and dropped down to all fours again. "It figures," he said with a sharp-toothed smile, and followed them back to the house.
Later that night, curled up in bed with El, Peter couldn't sleep. "What if he gets farther next time?" What if he runs off and kills someone, was the part he couldn't say. He was the one who'd brought the dragon into the town, the one who hadn't killed it -- killed him -- when he'd had the chance. Anything that Neal did from here on out was on Peter's head.
"I don't think he will," she said. "He can feel as he gets farther away from the other half of the chain. It's uncomfortable for him. I'm pretty sure that's why he didn't go any farther than he did."
So Neal, theoretically, could only roam about a mile in any direction from Peter -- or whoever had the control half of the chain. Still, two miles was a lot of territory, and a lot could happen in just a few minutes if he took his eyes off the dragon. El seemed to be confident that Neal would not hurt anyone, but Peter didn't share her confidence, especially with all these tempting snacks around: human and sheep alike.
In fact, Neal appeared to be giving the sheep a speculative look. Peter trotted over and smacked him on the shoulder. "Don't even think about it."
Neal rolled his eyes at him. "I see that you still presume guilt, regardless of evidence."
"You're you," Peter said. "That's all the evidence I need."
******
But Neal did find the lost child, and it only took him about an hour of ranging in ever-widening spirals through the fields. The boy had fallen into a small gully in the rough country where the rolling hills of the Valley met the forest marching down from the mountains. Neal's call of "Over here!" brought the farmers, and Peter, running to find the dragon standing with his legs braced on loose ground and his long neck craned down into a narrow ravine.
Neal sat on his haunches at the edge of the proceedings and watched the rescue efforts. The boy was shivering and covered with mud, but unharmed. After he'd been packed off to the farmhouse, the boy's father, a big gruff sheepherder, approached the dragon with diffident caution. "Sir dragon," he said politely. "Gotta admit, I wasn't too keen when I first saw you here, scarin' the sheep and all. But you found my boy, and I thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart." He held out a big, callused hand.
Peter was getting pretty good at reading Neal's expressions, and he looked both pleased and baffled. The dragon studied the old farmer's hand for a long time before he took it carefully in the tips of his claws and shook it.
"There was talk of payment," Neal said.
And it had been going so well. Peter quickly interposed himself between the dragon and the farmer. "I'll handle that end of things," he said.
The farmer shook his head. "He found my boy," he said stubbornly. "I pay my debts." To the dragon, he said, "Come on back with me. We don't have much, but anything we have is yours."
Oh, that is NOT a good offer to make, Peter thought. Neal looked pleased, though, and trotted along with them, as happy and obedient as a dog.
The family's little farm croft was like any of hundreds in the Valley, and very like the place where Peter had grown up: a tiny stone house with a sod roof, sunk into the side of a hill. The hay bier on one side and woodshed on the other were bigger than the house itself. But the yard was tidily kept, with a few scrawny chickens and a couple of dogs, all of which vanished in horror as Neal wandered into the yard, looking around curiously.
The interior of the house, too, was so familiar that Peter felt a quick tug of nostalgia as soon as he stepped inside: a single room, smoky from the badly vented fireplace at one end, with a low ceiling and single small window by the door. It was tiny, cramped, little more than a place to sleep; the benches along the walls did double duty as places to sleep at night and to sit during the day, when the weather was too bad to go outside. Between the smoke and poor lighting, most of the family's work would be done outside except in the worst weather.
Right now, the room was crowded with every one of the boy's relatives who could stuff inside -- siblings, aunts, cousins, all fussing over him. El nudged her way through the crowd to sidle over and squeeze Peter's hand. There was no room for Neal; he couldn't do more than stick his head inside, which he did, peering around with his usual insatiable curiosity.
Everyone in the room fell silent. A cat hissed and fled under one of the benches.
Then the boy's mother separated herself from the group around the boy. Fearlessly, she went up to the dragon. "Thank you for bringing my boy home safe," she said, and hugged his head.
Peter stared. So did everyone else.
"But I didn't actually do much," Neal said, a bit muffled. It was the first thing approaching modesty that Peter had heard out of him.
"I promised him a reward, Sally," the farmer said, and his wife nodded, let go of Neal's head -- he shook it uncomfortably and preened at his ruff with one forefoot -- and climbed up on one of the benches, shooing aside a few kids who had clustered there to look at the dragon. She took down a small box from the rafters and unlocked it with a key she wore on a rope around her waist.
Peter's family had had a safebox like that, too. And, like theirs, hers contained the family's bare handful of precious possessions, probably all that they owned besides their farm tools and a few clay dishes. Peter glimpsed a lock of hair, probably belonging to a dead child, a handful of copper coins and a silver necklace with a wide, flaring clasp that had to be a family heirloom.
Neal's eyes lit up covetously at the sight of it. The woman saw. She took out the necklace, and cradled it gently in her hand for a moment, as if recalling the ancestresses who had worn it. Then she held it out to Neal.
Neal looked from the necklace in the woman's workworn hand, to the meager contents of the box. Then he reached for the necklace with his claws.
I can't just let him do this, Peter thought. For one thing, I don't think he understands what he's doing. The idea that the dragon might care if he did know was a thought he didn't want to examine too closely. He leaned his head against Neal's scaly cheek, closer than he'd every gotten to the dragon except when Neal was tied up and unconscious. "Neal," he whispered, and tried to think how to translate the situation into terms the dragon would understand. Luckily, in this case it wasn't hard. "That's all the treasure they have in the world. Humans aren't like dragons. They don't have a secret treasure cache somewhere else." Well, some humans perhaps, but not people like this. "If you take that, you'll be taking the only thing of any importance they've got."
Neal hesitated. He frowned sideways at Peter.
"Look," Peter whispered, "let her keep it and I'll find something shiny for you back at home, all right? I promise. Just ask her for something small. One or two of the coins. It'll hurt her pride if you don't take anything. But ... Neal. It'll hurt her in a way you can never fix if you take that."
Peter could see Neal was thinking it over. Then he drew his claw back from the necklace and pointed into the box. "Not that," he said. "I'd like one of those ... round things instead. No, maybe two." The copper coins winked in the firelight. "Four?" Neal said, and Peter surreptitiously kicked him in the scaly ankle.
The woman was obviously trying to hide her relief, but it kept breaking through. She counted out four copper coins into Neal's forepaw. Neal, to Peter's interest, tucked them under the edge of his frilly ruff.
They walked home quietly in the growing dawn, Peter and El holding hands and Neal trailing them, lost in thought. As they entered the village's narrow streets, he said at last, "Was that true? All the treasure they have is in that box?" He sounded skeptical. "That can't be true."
"It's true," Peter said. "I grew up in a house like that. Believe me, it's true."
Neal cocked a sideways look at him. "You did."
"Yeah. Little sheepherding family, a lot like that one."
"But ..." Neal seemed to be trying to wrap his mind around it. "Why do they have so few nice things?"
"Can't afford them," Peter said. "It's just the way of the world."
"But they could take them," Neal said, clearly baffled.
"That wouldn't be right, Neal," El said, patting his shoulder.
"You can't just go around taking people's things," Peter added.
"You can if you're stronger," Neal said. "Or faster, or smarter. Especially if you take things they don't really need. I wouldn't take someone's last piece of treasure --" he shuddered at the very thought, his scales rippling like a horse shaking off a fly "-- but if someone has a lot of it, then it's up to them to be smart and strong enough to protect it."
"That's how dragons do it, huh?" Peter said with an edge in his voice. El gave his hand a little quelling squeeze.
"That's how everyone does it."
"Not in my town," Peter said. He pushed open the garden gate to let them both in.
Title: The Chains That Bind Us
Rating/Pairing: PG; gen w/background Peter/Elizabeth
Word Count: 5800 (this part); ~10,000 (so far)
Summary: Fantasy AU in which Peter is a dragonslayer, Neal is a dragon, and Elizabeth is the enchantress who binds him.
Cross-posted: On AO3
Part One can be found here
Part Two
They ended up taking Neal home to interrogate him.
If they stayed in the mine, Peter was worried about being interrupted by a torch-wielding mob at any moment. He wasn't too thrilled about the idea of taking the dragon to his house, either, but at least they'd have some privacy. And after they finished their chat with the dragon ... well. They'd figure out what to do next at that point, he supposed.
The dragon, no more pleased than Peter at the idea of encountering a mob of angry silver miners, offered to show them a different way out of the mine. "I knew it," Peter said. "You do have a secret entrance."
"About to become much less secret," the dragon grumbled.
He led the way. Peter followed, knife in hand and bow slung over his shoulder. Even with the chain suppressing his magic, the dragon was still quite dangerous. Peter had seen how fast he could move. However, whether it was the chain or the threat of the knife or simply some whim of his own, Neal made no attempt to attack them as he led them through a twisting series of passageways. They emerged at last under a star-filled sky, a couple of miles on the opposite side of the village.
"Lived here all my life and I never knew this was here," Peter said, looking around. "How'd you find it?"
"I'm a dragon," Neal said impatiently. "We're good at finding secret ways in and out of places. It's one of the things we do."
"The other ones being stealing things, kidnapping virgins and killing people?"
"You're so judgmental," Neal said.
They extinguished El's candle and kept to the shelter of trees and shrubbery as they made their way back to the village. I can't believe I'm doing this, Peter thought. He'd gone out to kill a dragon; now he was smuggling that same, dangerous dragon into the village where he lived. There were little kids here.
If I have to, I can stop him, Peter thought, slipping his hand into his pocket and feeling the living warmth of the chain.
He felt a wash of utter relief when they reached the neat little cottage that he shared with El without being seen by any of the neighbors -- and without Neal killing and eating any of the neighbors. Once inside their garden gate, he felt safer. There was something about this place that always made his stress and worries melt away. El loved tending her garden, and its neat flowerbeds and tidy vegetable patches were an oasis of peace and tranquility.
... though, at the moment, an oasis of peace and tranquility with a dragon in the middle of it.
Satchmo came trotting up to greet them. Then he caught a whiff of Neal's scent. His hackles went up and he snarled -- Satch was the mildest dog Peter had ever met; he'd never heard Satch growl before -- and then turned tail and fled into the backyard.
"Animals don't get along with my kind very well," Neal explained. "Can't imagine why."
Neal fit through the door easily, though he had to fold up his wings and duck his head. Once inside, he curled up in front of the fire. El had to walk around him and step over his tail as she bustled around putting away the contents of her basket. Peter went to the well in the backyard to fetch a bucket of water to heat for tea, and gave Satch a conciliatory pat along the way.
"I believe there was mention of wine?" Neal said, lazily raising his head. The flames gleamed on his scales, giving him a sinister air.
"Yes," Peter said. "By you. We're not wasting our good wine on you."
"Don't worry, Neal," El said, patting his snout. "I make an excellent cup of tea."
"El, he's a prisoner, not a guest," Peter said impatiently as he stripped off his armor. Hopefully he wouldn't regret it, but the armor was hot and heavy, and he didn't want to sit around in it.
Knife in hand, he sat at the table. He and the dragon eyed one another.
"Let's talk deals," Neal said.
"Yes. Let's." On the walk back, the thought had occurred to Peter that if he planned to go up against a dragon, having another dragon on his side, willing or not, could be useful in a great many ways beyond simply getting information. "The dragon that attacked the silver caravan -- I'd like your help in finding and ... neutralizing it. Him. Her."
"By neutralize, you mean kill." Neal's tail twitched, the serrated tip flicking back and forth.
"Well, yes," Peter said. "Whatever it takes. I mean, that dragon -- and I'm still giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming it isn't you -- murdered three people, and is likely to kill more. I'm not just going to let it walk away."
El put a cup of tea in front of Peter, and slipped one of her larger bowls under the dragon's snout. Neal lapped delicately, like a cat, and then raised his head. "Let's say that I take you up on your offer," he said. "I help you against one of my own kind. What do I get in return?"
That was the awkward question. "We don't kill you," Peter said.
El gave him a disapproving frown. Neal laughed. It sounded like a human laugh, aside from a sibilant undertone. "I think your negotiating skills could use some work."
"Look, you're stealing from us," Peter said. "Even if you didn't take the silver from the caravan, I caught you in the act of stealing from the mine."
The spiny frill on Neal's back bristled. "I'm a dragon. I take what I please. And I've never hurt anyone in your precious mine, or in this valley, at all."
Peter couldn't help noticing that he said nothing about anyone outside the Valley. "Oh really? What about the people who depend on the silver for their livelihood? Without that silver, this town's going to die. The whole Valley will wither and die. Any human who did what you did would have been put to death, as well."
Neal tapped his claws thoughtfully together. His frill ruffled and then lowered.
"What I'm offering you is a far better deal than I'd offer most human criminals. If you help us against the other dragon, I'll let you go afterwards, as long as you promise to go far away from here and never bother us again." Peter wondered if it was worth trying to extort a promise that Neal would return to the lands beyond the Wall, while he was at it, but there was no way he could ever tell if Neal kept a promise like that, so he didn't see any point in bothering.
Neal's frill flattened, and so did his head. "You're asking for a lot of trust, human. How do I know you'll keep your word?"
"How do I know you'll keep yours?"
Neal wordlessly stuck out his foot with the chain on it.
"Yes, and as soon as we remove it, you could burn our fields, kill our cattle, kill all of us. We're both taking a leap of faith, Neal." Peter held out a hand.
Neal stared at it for a moment. Then he held out his forepaw and engulfed Peter's hand in it. Peter had to brace himself not to pull away when the huge claws swallowed his hand, wrist and the lower part of his forearm. Neal's skin was scaly, warm and dry.
"It's a deal," Neal said, "for now," and dipped his snout to lap from the bowl of tea again.
El brought some cold chicken from the cold-storage room, cut off some for herself and Peter, and placed the rest on a plate in front of the dragon.
"So," Peter said. "The other dragon. Do you know him?"
"He uses the name Keller," Neal said. He nipped up the snack that El had offered him in a single quick, dainty bite. "He's dangerous."
"He's a dragon. You're all dangerous."
"More dangerous than me," Neal clarified. "All dragons love metals that glitter --" the blue of his eyes darkened for a wistful moment "-- but Keller cares for it above all things: friends, family, honor."
The idea that any dragons cared about friends, family or honor was news to Peter, but he kept his mouth shut.
"And he likes the terror that he evokes in humans," Neal went on. "He likes to play games, to be admired, to be feared. Right now he is probably resting in his lair, wherever it is. The energy that he spent when he attacked the caravan will take a while to recover."
And right there was a useful bit of information about dragons that wasn't in any of the books that Peter had read: flying, fighting, presumably using their dragonfire wore them out. They weren't invincible fighting machines, and they needed days to recover after a major fight, during which time they were vulnerable. Peter quietly filed this away for future reference.
"So is this a good time to attack him?"
Neal shook his head. "He will be approaching full strength again." He smiled briefly, showing his teeth. "I'm sure he'll be coming to you soon enough."
Great.
"Do you know where his lair is?"
"Did you miss the part where I said wherever it is? No dragon shares that information with anyone, dragon or otherwise. The lair," Neal said with a bit of a growl in his voice, "is where the treasure is. Every dragon guards that lair at all costs."
Peter watched him thoughtfully. "Do you have one?"
"Of course I do. And you will never learn where it is."
I could force him, Peter thought. But it was an ugly thought and he pushed it away with a little shudder. Besides, Neal wouldn't be stealing anything else as long as he wore El's chain. They could deal later with the matter of what he'd already stolen.
"We need a plan," he said, and pointed at the dragon curled up in front of the fire. "You're going to help us come up with a plan."
"Of course I will," Neal agreed calmly. He yawned, showing long jaws filled with very sharp-looking teeth. "Right now, I intend to sleep. I think best when I'm well rested."
Peter sighed. He could already feel a headache coming on. "All right. I suppose I'd better go explain why the dragon that's been robbing the silver mines is now sleeping in my house."
El put a hand on his arm as he rose. "Do you think that's a good idea?"
"What else can I do? It's not as if we can hide him under the rug. Someone's bound to notice eventually."
It went over better than Peter had hoped.
At least, they didn't immediately drag him through the streets and string him up.
Hughes, the mine owner, was the one he had to convince. The old miner was as hard as an ingot from one of his forges, not a man who gave trust lightly. But Hughes was one of the most powerful men in the Valley, and the one who'd been most directly affected by Neal's actions so far. And Hughes' word carried a lot of weight around here.
"You say it's not the one that killed my men."
"I believe he's not," Peter agreed. They were outside the smelting furnaces, and the heavy stink of the fires drifted on the dawn air.
"Because it told you so."
"No," Peter said. "Because the facts don't fit. I've been keeping the peace around here for a long time, Hughes. We've been friends a long time. And you know I'm not going to fall for honeyed words without evidence to support them."
"They say dragons can cloud men's minds."
"Not this dragon," Peter said. "My wife has placed a binding on him that renders him incapable of using any of his magic. He can't breathe fire and he can't fly. If the need arises, I can use the magic to control him, though I'd rather not have to. He seems to be cooperating willingly."
Hughes leaned against the wall and looked at Peter flatly. "You can't trust a dragon," he said. "They're pure evil, through and through. It's not their fault, it's just what they are."
"I'm not asking you to trust him." Peter spread his hands. "I'm asking you to trust me. I believe I can keep him under control while he cooperates in finding and killing the dragon that killed your men."
"Then what?"
Peter drew a deep breath. This was the part he'd hoped wouldn't come up, but Hughes was too smart for that, and Peter didn't feel right about lying. "I told him I'd let him go, as long as he left the Valley and never came back."
"You can't possibly mean that."
"I don't know yet," Peter said. "If he plays straight with me, I don't want to be the one to double-cross him."
"What do you think he'll do to you, as soon as your wife releases the binding? Believing the word of dragons is a good way to die."
"We can work out that part out later, then. This isn't the time. From what Neal says, this Keller dragon is going to be back soon, and we need his help."
Hughes studied him for a long moment.
"You're positive that your wife's magic can keep this dragon under control."
"You've known El all her life, and her mother and grandmother before her," Peter said. "Did you ever know any of those women to fail at something they said they'd do?"
A slight smile appeared on Hughes' sharp-edged face.
So now there was a dragon living in Peter and El's back garden.
The garden turned out to be a much better place for him than the house. Small though he might be, Neal's length filled the main room of Peter and El's little house from one side to the other. The garden was cool, shady and comfortable, and Neal seemed to enjoy lying under El's roses, idly picking a weed now and then.
Satchmo shunned the backyard and stayed in the house.
"He's terrorizing the dog," Peter complained to El.
"Neal hasn't done a thing to Satch," El said, ruffling the dog's ears. "He's been a perfect gentleman. Satch is going to have to learn to live with him."
"This is temporary," Peter said quickly. "Very temporary. Let's all keep that in mind, why don't we? We do not want a dangerous predator living in our garden for very long."
"At least it'll keep the neighbor kids from getting into my apple tree," El said cheerfully, and at Peter's disbelieving look, dissolved into giggles. She smacked him in the shoulder as she wound down to little chuckles. "Oh, stop making that face. I'm joking. Although he's keeping the rosebushes nicely weeded."
"You realize he's dangerous, right?"
The neighbors certainly did. As word began to spread around town that their dragonslayer had actually brought the dragon home to live with him, Peter and El had a steady supply of irate neighbors stopping them in the street to complain. Some were complaining about the danger; others insisted on the return of small personal items that they believed, against all logic or evidence, that the dragon had stolen. A few die-hard souls even went so far as to knock on their door, but that stopped cold when Neal poked his head around the house to get a better look.
Neal thought it was hilarious. He liked to stretch out his neck, rest his chin on top of Peter and El's garden wall, and watch life go on around the house -- which usually consisted of the neighbors going about their daily business until they noticed him, then screamed and fled.
Peter thought gloomily that at this rate, it was only a matter of time before an armed mob showed up at his door.
But people being people, it only took a day or two for the fear to wear off and interest in the novelty to set in. There was not ever a whole lot that was new and different in the Valley, and having a real live (small, tame) dragon living in Peter and El's garden became a source of fascination. Rather than avoiding the area, people began flocking into the alley behind the house, standing on crates or piles of bricks to see over the wall into the garden.
Neal seemed to be basking in it, although sometimes he came into the house to escape the attention when the attention and notoriety got to be too much for him.
"We ought to charge a fee to look at him," Peter muttered.
Neal overheard him, and looked cheerful at the idea. "That's a great idea. Coins are shiny."
"I was thinking more along the lines of paying for your upkeep."
So far, feeding him hadn't been that much of a problem. Neal wanted to hunt, but there was no way in hell Peter was turning him loose to do that. Peter and El were not wealthy people, but they did keep a small flock of sheep and a couple of cows, inherited from Peter's parents; they leased a plot of grazing land and hired a couple to look after the flock. They'd sacrificed a couple of these animals to Neal's appetite. That wasn't going to last in the long term, though.
Hopefully, though, there wouldn't be a long term. Thus far, Keller hadn't shown up again. There was one part of Peter that could only be glad -- when Keller did show up, death and destruction would follow in his wake -- and yet, if Keller wasn't here, what if he'd gone off to bother some other valley in the mountains, a valley that didn't have its own tame(ish) dragon to help out?
Not that the dragon had been all that much use so far. Peter spent a lot of time in the back garden with Neal, working on plans for taking down Keller. Or, more accurately, being told that most of his plans were stupid and would only get him killed.
"I caught you, didn't I?"
Neal growled softly, low in his throat. "By trickery, in the dark. Keller doesn't hunt in the dark like I do. He attacks in daylight, from above."
"So we come up with a different plan, then."
"If he's gone away, then he's not your problem," Neal pointed out. He was stretched out in the sun, looking comfortable, though he kept idly scratching at the chain with his back foot. "That's a good thing, right? You can go on about your life and --" he cracked an eye open hopefully "-- let me go."
"But he's someone else's problem, then," Peter said. "Because I let him get away."
"Why does it matter to you?" Neal asked, genuinely curious.
"Must be a human thing, I guess."
Life didn't stop just because a dragon threatened the Valley. Two days after Neal's capture, Peter was awakened by someone pounding on the door. He was halfway out of bed and reaching for his knife before his brain caught up; his first thought was They finally came for us, because of the dragon.
But instead, it was a mother frightened for her son. The boy had been out watching the flocks, but hadn't come home that evening. They had been searching for him all night, finding nothing.
"What if dragons killed him?" she whispered, casting nervous glances towards the backyard.
"It wasn't dragons," Peter told her, hoping against hope that it was true.
He got her to sit down by the fire, and El plied her with tea, while Peter got dressed and slipped out into the darkness. And almost ran into a dragon; only the white patch at Neal's throat alerted him before he smacked into his resident garden houseguest.
"Neal, whatever you want, I don't have time for it." Two days ago, he never would have believed that if he ever walked into a dragon, he'd simply shove it out of his way and keep going, but that was exactly what he did.
Neal allowed himself to be moved aside in catlike style, then kept pace with him to the garden gate. "Don't be so hasty," he said. "I can help out. For a price, of course." His tail swished back and forth.
"Yeah, right."
"I heard what she wants. I can probably find the human fledgling, if you want me to."
Peter stopped in his tracks. "Say what?"
"By smell," Neal said. "Dragons have a good sense of smell. What, you didn't know that?"
"No, I didn't know that." He studied the dragon in the dim light, wondering what his angle was. Neal never did anything without wanting something in return. "What's your price to help?"
"Shiny things, obviously," the dragon said impatiently. "If she has any jewelry or such, I'll take that, but only if it's real gold or silver. Otherwise, you can fetch me something suitably expensive."
Peter hesitated, remembering the rumors about the dragon stealing necklaces and such, right out of people's bedrooms or locked cabinets. He'd thought it was complete nonsense, but that was back when he'd thought a dragon would be the size of a house, slow and ponderous and huge. Now that he'd actually seen Neal -- small, lithe, fast-moving Neal, capable of squeezing his bulk into impossibly tiny spaces -- it suddenly seemed a lot more likely.
"You really think you can find this kid."
"If he's there to be found," Neal said loftily, "then I can find him. Payment in advance, of course."
"No way. The kid's more important than you getting your shiny things. I'll pay you after you find him."
Neal put up a token resistance, but he seemed pleased enough that he didn't protest very hard. Peter considered that Neal had been separated from his treasure hoard for a few days now; if what they said about dragons and their gold was true, he must be pining for it like a drunk denied his alcohol.
The motley crew of farmers and herdboys searching for the lost child were nonplused, to say the least, by the appearance of Peter with an apparently free-range dragon. Peter had to explain over and over again that Neal was under magical control, that he could neither breathe fire nor fly, and that he was no danger to anyone (Peter hoped). Meanwhile, Neal roamed the field, belly-deep in dew-damp grass. Peter couldn't tell if he was actually searching for the boy or simply glorying in being out in the countryside for the first time in two days. All he seemed to be managing to accomplish was terrifying the animals out of their wits.
The thought occurred to him that Neal might take advantage of the opportunity to run for it. The first night, he'd done exactly that, which was when El had introduced Peter to another property of the control chain: it allowed them to find Neal anywhere. They caught up him only about a mile away, outside the town gates, standing with his forepaws on the top rail of a fence and his nose to the wind. Neal had bared his teeth and for a moment Peter thought they might have to use force -- he interposed himself between El and Neal, and got ready to fight. But Neal just sighed and dropped down to all fours again. "It figures," he said with a sharp-toothed smile, and followed them back to the house.
Later that night, curled up in bed with El, Peter couldn't sleep. "What if he gets farther next time?" What if he runs off and kills someone, was the part he couldn't say. He was the one who'd brought the dragon into the town, the one who hadn't killed it -- killed him -- when he'd had the chance. Anything that Neal did from here on out was on Peter's head.
"I don't think he will," she said. "He can feel as he gets farther away from the other half of the chain. It's uncomfortable for him. I'm pretty sure that's why he didn't go any farther than he did."
So Neal, theoretically, could only roam about a mile in any direction from Peter -- or whoever had the control half of the chain. Still, two miles was a lot of territory, and a lot could happen in just a few minutes if he took his eyes off the dragon. El seemed to be confident that Neal would not hurt anyone, but Peter didn't share her confidence, especially with all these tempting snacks around: human and sheep alike.
In fact, Neal appeared to be giving the sheep a speculative look. Peter trotted over and smacked him on the shoulder. "Don't even think about it."
Neal rolled his eyes at him. "I see that you still presume guilt, regardless of evidence."
"You're you," Peter said. "That's all the evidence I need."
But Neal did find the lost child, and it only took him about an hour of ranging in ever-widening spirals through the fields. The boy had fallen into a small gully in the rough country where the rolling hills of the Valley met the forest marching down from the mountains. Neal's call of "Over here!" brought the farmers, and Peter, running to find the dragon standing with his legs braced on loose ground and his long neck craned down into a narrow ravine.
Neal sat on his haunches at the edge of the proceedings and watched the rescue efforts. The boy was shivering and covered with mud, but unharmed. After he'd been packed off to the farmhouse, the boy's father, a big gruff sheepherder, approached the dragon with diffident caution. "Sir dragon," he said politely. "Gotta admit, I wasn't too keen when I first saw you here, scarin' the sheep and all. But you found my boy, and I thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart." He held out a big, callused hand.
Peter was getting pretty good at reading Neal's expressions, and he looked both pleased and baffled. The dragon studied the old farmer's hand for a long time before he took it carefully in the tips of his claws and shook it.
"There was talk of payment," Neal said.
And it had been going so well. Peter quickly interposed himself between the dragon and the farmer. "I'll handle that end of things," he said.
The farmer shook his head. "He found my boy," he said stubbornly. "I pay my debts." To the dragon, he said, "Come on back with me. We don't have much, but anything we have is yours."
Oh, that is NOT a good offer to make, Peter thought. Neal looked pleased, though, and trotted along with them, as happy and obedient as a dog.
The family's little farm croft was like any of hundreds in the Valley, and very like the place where Peter had grown up: a tiny stone house with a sod roof, sunk into the side of a hill. The hay bier on one side and woodshed on the other were bigger than the house itself. But the yard was tidily kept, with a few scrawny chickens and a couple of dogs, all of which vanished in horror as Neal wandered into the yard, looking around curiously.
The interior of the house, too, was so familiar that Peter felt a quick tug of nostalgia as soon as he stepped inside: a single room, smoky from the badly vented fireplace at one end, with a low ceiling and single small window by the door. It was tiny, cramped, little more than a place to sleep; the benches along the walls did double duty as places to sleep at night and to sit during the day, when the weather was too bad to go outside. Between the smoke and poor lighting, most of the family's work would be done outside except in the worst weather.
Right now, the room was crowded with every one of the boy's relatives who could stuff inside -- siblings, aunts, cousins, all fussing over him. El nudged her way through the crowd to sidle over and squeeze Peter's hand. There was no room for Neal; he couldn't do more than stick his head inside, which he did, peering around with his usual insatiable curiosity.
Everyone in the room fell silent. A cat hissed and fled under one of the benches.
Then the boy's mother separated herself from the group around the boy. Fearlessly, she went up to the dragon. "Thank you for bringing my boy home safe," she said, and hugged his head.
Peter stared. So did everyone else.
"But I didn't actually do much," Neal said, a bit muffled. It was the first thing approaching modesty that Peter had heard out of him.
"I promised him a reward, Sally," the farmer said, and his wife nodded, let go of Neal's head -- he shook it uncomfortably and preened at his ruff with one forefoot -- and climbed up on one of the benches, shooing aside a few kids who had clustered there to look at the dragon. She took down a small box from the rafters and unlocked it with a key she wore on a rope around her waist.
Peter's family had had a safebox like that, too. And, like theirs, hers contained the family's bare handful of precious possessions, probably all that they owned besides their farm tools and a few clay dishes. Peter glimpsed a lock of hair, probably belonging to a dead child, a handful of copper coins and a silver necklace with a wide, flaring clasp that had to be a family heirloom.
Neal's eyes lit up covetously at the sight of it. The woman saw. She took out the necklace, and cradled it gently in her hand for a moment, as if recalling the ancestresses who had worn it. Then she held it out to Neal.
Neal looked from the necklace in the woman's workworn hand, to the meager contents of the box. Then he reached for the necklace with his claws.
I can't just let him do this, Peter thought. For one thing, I don't think he understands what he's doing. The idea that the dragon might care if he did know was a thought he didn't want to examine too closely. He leaned his head against Neal's scaly cheek, closer than he'd every gotten to the dragon except when Neal was tied up and unconscious. "Neal," he whispered, and tried to think how to translate the situation into terms the dragon would understand. Luckily, in this case it wasn't hard. "That's all the treasure they have in the world. Humans aren't like dragons. They don't have a secret treasure cache somewhere else." Well, some humans perhaps, but not people like this. "If you take that, you'll be taking the only thing of any importance they've got."
Neal hesitated. He frowned sideways at Peter.
"Look," Peter whispered, "let her keep it and I'll find something shiny for you back at home, all right? I promise. Just ask her for something small. One or two of the coins. It'll hurt her pride if you don't take anything. But ... Neal. It'll hurt her in a way you can never fix if you take that."
Peter could see Neal was thinking it over. Then he drew his claw back from the necklace and pointed into the box. "Not that," he said. "I'd like one of those ... round things instead. No, maybe two." The copper coins winked in the firelight. "Four?" Neal said, and Peter surreptitiously kicked him in the scaly ankle.
The woman was obviously trying to hide her relief, but it kept breaking through. She counted out four copper coins into Neal's forepaw. Neal, to Peter's interest, tucked them under the edge of his frilly ruff.
They walked home quietly in the growing dawn, Peter and El holding hands and Neal trailing them, lost in thought. As they entered the village's narrow streets, he said at last, "Was that true? All the treasure they have is in that box?" He sounded skeptical. "That can't be true."
"It's true," Peter said. "I grew up in a house like that. Believe me, it's true."
Neal cocked a sideways look at him. "You did."
"Yeah. Little sheepherding family, a lot like that one."
"But ..." Neal seemed to be trying to wrap his mind around it. "Why do they have so few nice things?"
"Can't afford them," Peter said. "It's just the way of the world."
"But they could take them," Neal said, clearly baffled.
"That wouldn't be right, Neal," El said, patting his shoulder.
"You can't just go around taking people's things," Peter added.
"You can if you're stronger," Neal said. "Or faster, or smarter. Especially if you take things they don't really need. I wouldn't take someone's last piece of treasure --" he shuddered at the very thought, his scales rippling like a horse shaking off a fly "-- but if someone has a lot of it, then it's up to them to be smart and strong enough to protect it."
"That's how dragons do it, huh?" Peter said with an edge in his voice. El gave his hand a little quelling squeeze.
"That's how everyone does it."
"Not in my town," Peter said. He pushed open the garden gate to let them both in.
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