You’re beautiful. Her mental voice had layers that spoken voices couldn’t hold: admiration, wonder, curiosity.
His dragon spread his wings and sat up to turn and share a new angle.
Don’t let it go to your head, Mal snorted privately. To Scarlet, he cautioned, I cannot go deep without risking waking the wyrm. But I can take you under.
Under the island? Scarlet looked down curiously. Is there a cave?
I don’t need caves, Mal scoffed. He regarded her form thoughtfully. She was standing now, her pale, lithe form dressed only in her wild hair. Your form, it is solid?
You tell me, Scarlet teased, brushing her hair back over her shoulder.
Certainly she had been plenty to hold onto just moments before. Mal gave a huff of a dragon laugh and vowed to do further experimentation with the solidity of her form at the first available opportunity.
He crouched. Hold onto me and don’t let go. I can take you with me, but I cannot protect you if I lose contact. It’s a little like Saina’s ability to allow others to breathe underwater when she’s touching them, but it would be much more painful than drowning.
Where are you taking me? Scarlet asked, walking fearlessly between his forelegs and putting her hand on one of his front feet. Mal closed his claws around her waist gently and then folded his wings around them both.
Down.
He fell forward into the earth, keeping his dive shallow and quiet. Even so, the island trembled as he passed the top levels of the dirt, sliding into the bedrock that lay below. He could feel it flow through him as he sank, carefully, not too far. He could sense the creature further down and he stayed well away, near the surface. They were near the peak of the island; hundreds of feet of rock separated them.
Scarlet was alarmed at first, then Mal felt her curiosity and wonder blossom.
It’s not dark, she observed in surprise.
It’s not really sight, Mal tried to explain. Not with eyes.
The different kinds of rock wer
e rainbows of colors, patterns of earth energy. The soil at the top was a soup of mineral hues. The stone roots of the world stretched below them in glowing tones, and the surface of the earth was like the surface of water, reflecting back a distorted view.
The threads of rock snagged and caught on him as he swam through the slabs and they made a ringing song that wasn’t really sound as they dove.
Mal moved carefully, slipping through the rock gently. Even so, the resort would be getting a good tremor; Scarlet would undoubtedly bill him for the broken glassware.
He drew them back up into the clearing and as they approached the surface, they caught a glimpse of Scarlet’s roots, gleaming with life and power.
You are as beautiful from below as you are from above, Mal told her.
Her laughter was flattered.
Then, not wanting to disrupt more than he had to, or risk disturbing the wyrm’s slumber, Mal reluctantly returned to the air.
The ground was still resettling as he broke the surface and Scarlet nearly lost her balance on the heaving moss as he set her down again, shifting to catch her.
He needn’t have bothered; it steadied at once, but the feeling of her in his arms was intoxicating, so he didn’t let go.
“Did you... like it?”
Scarlet regarded him seriously. “I can’t say it was comfortable,” she confessed. “But it was beautiful.”
“There aren’t many places I can go deep without risking innocent surface casualties,” Mal said regretfully. “Only a few of the stronger seams of the earth, or land where no one lives.”
“You planned to fight the wyrm like that, from inside the rock?” Scarlet didn’t seem to be in a hurry to be free of his embrace, letting her hands wander up his arms to his shoulders.
“We would be evenly matched on neutral ground,” Mal conceded, trying to concentrate on problems that didn’t involve her clever fingers and their dearth of clothing. “And if he gains the sky, my chances of success start to plummet. I don’t particularly want to give up my advantage... but that was just a skim into upper bedrock. Our battle will shake the pillars of the island itself. There may not even be an island at the end of it.” He did not have to add that with no island, there would be no Scarlet.
We cannot let her be destroyed, his dragon creeled.