"Mm... m -mm... h... uy..." The sound of almost painful-sounding moans and garbled grunting echoed through the room. It ended with a harsh sigh of frustrated defeat.
"Try again. Many years have the words of others filled year ears, but never your own. How many years? 'My name is...'" The feminine voice trailed off with a reassuring nod of the head and beckoning gestures. Come on.
Her elder growled softly to himself. Where her every movement was measured with care and encouragement, his were sharp and jerky, filled with the closest to anger one might ever see expressed in his otherwise carefree manner. At length, he shook his head. All right, once more, he seemed to say. "M... my. N-aee, name. Eess. Eeyis. Is. My name is. Iissstoh. Isto. My name is Isto."
"Yes! Uncle!" Niwanti's exuberant congratulations, hand clapping and a hug for her uncle, were overshadowed by a third, gravelly voice behind them.
"Good. Isto, so you have learned to speak."
Smiles were briefly frozen on the faces of Niwanti and Isto as they turned toward the doorway behind them. There was an almost eerie but unmistakable similarity in their expressions and features. Though they were dragons by birth, both possessed the ability to shape-shift into a nearly-human form, which they had both currently taken. However, Isto had never had a gift for speech in any form, and though he could understand both the written and spoken word, had never had the physical capability to use his own voice, that is, until now. It had taken many years of trial and error to perfect such a small but important and complicated defect in his form. He was understandably proud of this deceptively modest achievement.
"Fohrrr now," he nodded. "ieet'ss sslow." He sighed, baffled at how tiring and difficult it was to move his lips and tongue, and to vibrate his throat the way he knew they must.
Their visitor nodded and his smile was warm and energetic. Isto's concentration on and execution of his two-word sentences had been accomplished despite being nearly bowled over by a smaller but equally strong, red-furred and feather-winged cat with wide, excited eyes. This was Ignatius, whom had seen the two of them grow from tiny hatchlings into the full-grown dragons they were today.
"I want to tell everyone. But," he paused with a toothy grin, "I'll definitely let you tell them yourself." Then, unable to contain himself, he pulled them into an iron bar-like embrace. This hug from them was almost restrictive but warm and comforting at the same time. Ignatius always seemed to walk that line. "Isto, I have never been so proud of you. Well, maybe the first day you flew. Or perhaps it was when you went off to sponsor Niwanti on your own. It's difficult to decide."
Niwanti chuckled. "Uncle's just full of surprises."
"That he is!"
Isto knew whom he wanted to tell first. But it would have to wait just a little while longer.
- - -
"Come in."
The vampire was cloaked by the gloom of early evening, murky and violet, but embraced also by the golden warmth of the lamplight at his desk, and further off, the orangey glow of the fireplace in the middle of the room. Writing something, he was both expressionless and engrossed in the paper before him.
However, his guest hesitated for only a moment. The hesitation was not for intimidation but rather a nervousness of a different kind. Isto sighed silently to himself and his soft footfalls announced his passage through the room.
"Ah, Isto. What is it?" Voivode set down his pen and circled around the heavy desk to properly meet the dragon halfway across the room. Pale blue and violet creatures themselves, gliding across the soft carpet it was as if two ghosts, finally recognizing their fate, had looked past their own petty suffering to gaze upon another of their kind standing only directly in front of them.
Of course the vampire knew that Isto would not be replying to him directly. However, his niece and translator, Niwanti, was nowhere in evidence, so his mild confusion was understandable. Isto seemed to be troubled by something. Just what it was he could only guess.
"Isto." The vampire gazed up at the dragon calmly. They had shared many a quiet evening in each other's company without communicating overtly a single thought or idea, simply enjoying the other's presence nearby. "Would you care to sit with me by the fire?"
Isto held up a warding hand, accented by a shake of his hand. While Voivode waited, he sighed again. He had been practicing for weeks, his every effort culminating in this very moment. His nervousness melted away into utter calm, and his voice, finally, filled Voivode's ears. It was heavily accented but sweet and clear. "Please. Allow me to kiss you."
Voivode's dark eyes widened noticeably as he continued to stare at the dragon, but otherwise he did not move. Vampires are like that, inhumanly still. It could have been shock, but instead of stiffening, he seemed to relax. This vampire in particular was, like tonight, somehow rather doll-like.
Isto raised his hands to either side of Voivode's face, feeling the line of his jaw parallel to his last digit. He leaned downward, eyes sliding shut at the very last instant until his lips brushed the top of his head, where steely blue-black hair slid like metal coolly from their follicles. Of course he kissed Voivode's forehead. It would have felt unbearably inappropriate, a violation of some intangible but understood boundary, to display his affection in any more intimate way. I have always wanted to do that.
"When did you learn this?" Of course Voivode was referring to his new 'mastery' of speech. How many minutes had passed?
Isto was no master of the spoken word, however. It was still difficult to reply. "Prrrack-tiss."
"I see."
"I..." He hung his head a little with a self-depreciating smile. He was rarely apologetic, but if there was anything he desperately wanted and could not achieve, it was perfect speech. "Sohrry."
"Do not apologize, Isto. You must have spent many hours—days? to get that right." And he had reserved those precious efforts just for his lord and no one else.
"Yes."
"You said it perfectly. Thank you."
This was the most either of them had ever spoken to the other. "Isto. Will you join me by the fire tonight?"
"Yes." Right now there was nothing he wanted more than to curl up by the fire. Voivode left to brew up a kettle of tea. When he returned with only the rich spicy aroma of the tea to announce his presence, the dragon had already reverted to his natural form, a tall, leggy dragon that would always look only half-grown. The opalline-white form of Isto was curled up just as he had wanted to be. He peeked up from his neatly-folded limbs and banner-tipped tail, with his long, rabbit-like ears at attention. If he had been a canine, he surely would have been wagging that tail.
Isto | Ignatius | Voivode | Niwanti
Star City Dragonry | The Bower