There was whooping. There was hollering. There was cheering and dancing.
Quirk slipped away from it all. She was, she supposed, happy for them. And Will was right, she grudgingly admitted to herself. His plan had saved far more lives than probably any other could have done. But she had no real interest in joining in their celebrations. The corpses of the dragon were too close, their call too loud.
She approached, scattering crowds of gathering crows. Already the stench of rot was ripe in the air. She ran her hand over a rim of ragged meat, tracing the course of an exposed artery, already mentally cataloging it for later.
So much dragon and so little time…
She clambered into the splayed-open corpse of the dragon, feeling the meat slick beneath her feet. She followed the course of the vein, counting its branches, trying to discern the muscles it passed through. As she worked, and tried to control the quiver of excitement in her hands, she thought she could perhaps understand the celebrations of the others a little better.
After a few yards she found the vein’s passage was blocked by a lump of hardened magma. The whole corpse was spattered with cooling chunks of black rock sprayed by the volcano that ranged in size from pinheads to apples. She plucked this one off the corpse, careful not to disturb the tissue beneath.
As she moved to toss it away, something caught her eye. A sharp yellow glint she had only just exposed. She hesitated, examined the rock more closely, wiping and picking at it with her thumb.
Out of the rock emerged a small nugget of gold. It gleamed dully in her palm. Beauty incongruous in the battlefield.
Slowly Quirk took in the whole breath of the plain they all stood upon. Splatters of magma were everywhere. They spread out across the field of battle in a slowly dissipating arc to the west of Hallows’ Mouth.
The gold had not disintegrated when the volcano blew. It had not been scooped up by the hand of some god and whisked away to the heavens. It had been melted. It had mixed with the rock. And it had been spread over this field.
Tons of it were being slowly churned into the mud by cavorting, drunken soldiers.
Standing in the corpse of a dead dragon, Quirk rolled the nugget of gold between her fingers.
She was not proud of much of what she had done in Kondorra. But looking back on everything that had brought her to this point, she could say she had gone out into the field, studied the beasts, and survived. She had seen them up close. She would have their corpses to study. She could take samples, and interview people here. She had more than enough information to write the definitive text on dragons. And when she returned to Tamathia, she would be the most famous thaumatobiologist alive. Her debt would be paid. The kindness of others would be rewarded.
There were happier endings, perhaps. But she was a realist. Perhaps this ending was happy enough.
She looked over to Lette, and Balur, and Will, They were dancing and drinking now. Just like everyone else. Would any more gold really improve things? From what she’d seen, too much wealth wasn’t really good for people actually.
After a long moment, she pocketed the nugget, and silently went back to her work.