DOOM LOOKED OVER from the deer carcass he was dressing, frowning faintly. Tiwaz paced the edge of their camp like a caged cat. Her hair was unusually unkempt, escaped strands of ebony black hair haloing the severe braiding that kept it tightly against her head. “Ti, what’s bothering you? You’ve been on edge for days.”

“Nothing’s bothering me,” she snapped.

“Of course not.” He gathered the guts and other unused remains of the dear and wrapped the offal in the deer hide. The gromek regarded her from the corner of his eye. “You just make the lightning storms that roll through here every few days seem like calm drizzles.” He deflected a rock thrown at his head. “Come on, Ti. Talk to me.”

“It won’t help,” she whispered in anguish, sitting on her log, holding her head in her hands. “Because I do not even know what’s bothering me.” She made a tortured sound and looked up at him. “I do not have the words. I just have feelings. Images I cannot describe.” Slamming her fists on the log, she sent pieces of bark flying as she yelled her frustration. “It is making me insane!”

“It is certainly making you reckless,” he stated as he rose to his full height, stretching. “Why don’t you go blow off some steam while getting rid of this so we don’t get any scavengers trying to loot our supplies.” He watched her snatch the bundle and stalk away, disappearing into the trees. “Just come back safe, Ti,” he murmured, turning his attention back to butchering the deer.

TIWAZ STALKED THROUGH the forest, stopping only when she reached the edge of the plateau, looking out over the valley towards the ocean sparkling on the horizon. With a flip and shake of the hide, the refuse tumbled over the cliff. Tossing the hide to the side, she turned on a sapling, striking it with her hands and feet in unarmed combat moves. She did not stop, her words punctuated with strikes. “You do realize I can smell you, Dragon?”

“I would be disappointed if you couldn’t.” The ruby-eyed dragon uncurled and watched her for a time. “I see you have recovered from your injuries.” She glared sidelong at him. “It was rather foolish for you to attack a wyvern with merely a short sword. You are small and without natural defenses.” He tilted his head, watching her continue to attack the sapling. “Why do you attack the tree? Has it insulted you?”

Her strikes increased in pace and intensity for several minutes. She finally spun and demanded, “Are you the one I owe my debt to?”

“No,” he replied simply.

“Then why is your scent familiar to me?” She crossed her arms, glowering. “What do you want from me, Dragon?”

“What do I want?” The dragon looked thoughtful. “I suppose it stands to reason that you assume that I want something.” He unfurled his wings, then folded them back. “I do have a name,” he stated, the implication she should ask for it and use it inferred in his tones.

“You have a name? Well, good for you.” She turned back to the tree. “I do not.”

The dragon exhaled in a soft snort. “Everything has a name.” He blinked in surprise when she threw a rock that bounced off the bony crest of his forehead. His red eyes narrowed when she turned and stalked off into the forest. Lithely leaping into the air, the dragon glided over the trees, dropping out of the air with a thump in front of the fuming woman. “Why do you not have a name? Does your companion not call you Tiwaz?”

“Why?” Green eyes flashed with grief, her body shaking with fury. “Because my master stole it and any memory I had of my life before I woke up in a cage with Doom! He gave up his name so I would not feel bad about being nameless. What he calls me is just another word for warrior in his people’s tongue.”

Lowering his head, regarding her with one massive eye, the dragon asked gently, “Both of you have won your freedom. You could choose a new name for yourself. He could take up his own again.”

“How can I choose a new name? Our names are our identities, and I don’t know who or what I am.” She turned her back on the dragon so he could not see tears welling up in her eyes, arms crossed tightly across her chest. “He always had his name. I don’t know why I did not realize we’re not alike. I made him tell me his name, but he refuses to use it. What Doom calls me is as close to a name as I will allow, but it only describes what I am.” She closed her eyes and stated, “If I take Tiwaz as my true name, it will be all I am. I do not even know what I am anymore. But I can’t be only…this.”

“It would not,” the dragon stated with infinite calmness. “But I understand. You have defined your identity within your name, and lack of one for the lack in the other.” She turned back to glare at the dragon suspiciously. He almost smiled. “Do you think your kinds are the only ones who have issues with self-identity? Even gods struggle with such things.”

“Gods,” she stated icily, “do not exist.” She started to walk away, stopping short when a spiked tail slammed the ground in front of her, impeding her path. She glared up at him.

The dragon tilted his head. “I cannot tell if you hide your fear that well or you have no fear of me at all. Interesting.”

“Why are you so fascinated with me? Dragons do not care about anything that is weak.” Hands on her hips, Tiwaz glared at the massive creature. “I know that much about your race.”

“That is not true. My siblings and I care about your and…Doom’s…welfare. I was the one who distracted the wyvern so my sister could hold it until it finally succumbed to the wound you gave it. My sister is the one to whom you owe your debt. You have met my brother, who explained your true nature so you need not fear it.” The dragon blinked slowly. “Though you refuse to embrace what you truly are.”

“What is that? I knew what I was before. A gladiator. The best gladiator alive. I kept Doom safe from our master. In Shurakh Arln, I was his protector.” She threw her arms out expansively. “What am I here but a liability? A filthy mageborn on top of that.”

“Ah, I understand now.” The appearance of a smile grew on the dragon’s muzzle. “A failing many of your kind have is in believing that inborn talent defines who you are. I assure you, it does not. Neither does your race define who you are.” Tapping the ground with the long claw of one finger meaningfully, he stated, “Your character defines you. It is what you do with what you have. How you compensate for what you lack. It is your motivations and actions and lack of them that define you.” In a quiet voice, it added, “And I do care about you, young warrior.”

Walking around her as a predator would circle its prey, the dragon considered her. She did not move, arms crossed, watching him in wary silence. “You do not believe me.”

“Why should I? You say you care about me. But when you questioned Doom why he bothers with me? You think I should be left for dead. Or at the very least abandoned. I will not be deceived by your lies, Dragon.”

The dragon lay in a circle around Tiwaz casually. “You are bold to be so defiant towards me. Another of my kind might not be so tolerant of your lack of respect. Dragons have patience in many things, but disrespect is not one of those things. But again, I understand. The abuse you have suffered does not lend itself to trust in others nor faith in anything but what has proven itself to you.” Its spiked tail rose and fell in a slow rhythm. “The world was very different when I had known what you have lived. Part of why we question Doom is because we want to be certain of his motivations.”

“Why would his motivations matter?” Tiwaz asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed. With fists clenched, she shifted into a hostile posture. “I will not allow you to hurt him!”

The rumble of draconic laughter vibrated through Tiwaz’s feet. “You need not worry why they would matter. But we will bring neither of you harm, I assure you.” Slowly, she relaxed from her attack stance and crossed her arms lightly. “You are a curiosity. Most trained in combat as you have been would be considerably more arrogant and selfish. You are quite contrary to that stereotype. Oh, you possess arrogance, thinking that you have any power presently that could stop any of us from harming Doom. But it is not the egotistical arrogance so common to those who have mastered their arts.”

“What good was weapons mastery?” she demanded. “My master could have destroyed me with a flick of his fingers. He would have hurt Doom if I did not obey him. Doom dared do nothing because he did not want me hurt for his disobedience.”

“No, he could not have destroyed you. But you could not know this because he ensured you never knew magic lore beyond what you observed of his.” The red in the dragon’s eyes flared brighter for a moment. “Do you want proof of your character? Of Doom’s? That black-hearted sorcerer dominated you by threats not to you but to him. To you both, this arrangement of dominance was a pact, and you abided by that pact for all those years. Until the sorcerer broke that pact by punishing you for your defiance. That is when things changed for you both.”

“How would you know what happened?”

The dragon tilted his head. “I have ways to discover these things. But mostly because this close, I can see your soul’s aura that you hide so fiercely. From what you have told me, and what my siblings have told me of you and Doom, it is the only reasonable conclusion. After so long enslaved, something changed. Something that moved you to escape.

“But it was Doom that chose escape. You would not have. If it had been Doom hurt and near death, you,” he said in a low voice, “would have attacked your former master, and not necessarily because you would have had difficulty getting him away safely and unseen. You do not remember freedom, so you would not have thought about it. You might even have succeeded had things occurred differently. However, the effort would have killed you because of what it would have taken to break through the power of those glyphs.”

“My life for Alimar’s would have been worth it,” Tiwaz stated tonelessly, eyes downcast and fists clenched at her sides. “He would never be able to hurt Doom again. Never hurt anyone else again.” She looked up and snapped, “What do you want from me, Dragon?”

The dragon raised his head, looking to the sky as he mused aloud, “What do I want? That is a good question. I suppose what I want is you.” Just a hairbreadth’s faster than Tiwaz, the dragon slammed his forefoot in her path to keep her from bolting away. “Not like your former master,” he stated in exasperation. “Relax, would you?”

“Then how?” she asked, remaining poised to spring away the moment the opportunity presented itself.

“I want you as a friend.”

Incredulously, she asked, “You want…a friend? You cannot be serious. Why? You are more magic than not because you are a dragon, not human.”

“There is more irony in those words than you realize. Race matters nothing to friendships. It is the one magic stronger than all others that none can control or master.” For a brief moment, the dragon looked tired. “You are young. You would not understand what being my age is like. To everything else alive, I am something to fear, to challenge, to worship. Except for you.”

As she relaxed, he moved his forefoot back. “If you do fear anything about me, it is what danger I present to Doom. Unless I threaten Doom, which I have no intention of doing, you do not challenge me. You suspect what I am, but you do not worship me my greater power, begging for gifts and boons without offering something in return. In fact, I suspect even if I did gift you something, you would insist on reciprocating, even if I felt the gift was recompense.” She crossed her arms. “It is…refreshing.”

“You still want something. You would not be here otherwise.” She blinked in surprise and uncertainty at the dragon’s suddenly sheepish demeanor. “You really just want…?”

The dragon sighed heavily. “It saddens me that you are more surprised by what I want, not because of what I am. I envy Doom for what he shares with you.” He rose, stretching and carefully stepping around her. “My brother, sister and I were more asleep than awake for a very long time. It was your and Doom’s light that dispelled the darkness over us. You give us hope for the future.” He looked over his shoulder. “Trust in yourself. Shed the shackles your mind has created and see the truth that your former master feared.”

Tiwaz held her arms up to protect her face from the debris sent flying in the wind caused by the dragon taking flight. She frowned as she watched him disappear. Turning back towards home, she paused when a flash of reflected sunlight caught her eye. She knelt and picked up a red chunk of crystal the length of her small finger, the flat surfaces shimmering in the light. Looking back to the sky where the dragon disappeared, she stood again, curling her hand into a fist around the raw ruby.

DOOM LAID STRIPS of meat over the rack he had made to dry the venison. He looked up from his work when he heard Tiwaz return and watched her go into their cave home without a word of acknowledgment to him. He stood there for several minutes staring at the cave entrance, then shook his head, turning his attention back to his work, no less worried about her now than he had been earlier, but relieved to know she was home safe.