Chapter 50: THE DRAGONKEEPERS SAY NO

DIANA’S POV

Diana reached Vharos’s secured cavern gate the following morning with Alma and her two Household Guards, her slate already in hand and every expectation of seeing Vharos again.

Master Clair stood between her and the secured stair.

"Not today."

Diana stopped with one foot already pointed toward the descent. Master Clair waited while she took out her slate.

WHY?

"Vharos ate again late last night."

That sounded like an argument for seeing him.

Diana wrote: GOOD.

"Yes."

She waited.

Master Clair folded his arms.

"Healer Lou examined him this morning. No acute change. He is resting, his pain is being managed, and he has taken food."

Diana pointed toward the stair.

Master Clair shook his head.

"Yesterday he had refused food and we had reason to test whether your presence changed the situation enough for feeding to become possible. Today he is stable."

Diana wrote:

MY PRESENCE MAY BE WHY.

"It may."

She stared at him.

Master Clair apparently saw where the argument was going.

"If I bring you down every time he refuses food and continue keeping you there whenever he eats, I eventually learn only what Vharos does while you are present."

The locked gate remained between Diana and the stair.

"He may have eaten twenty minutes later without you yesterday. He may have refused the rest of the day. We cannot go back and check because we changed the condition."

Diana considered.

That was deeply inconvenient.

She erased her slate.

SO I LEAVE?

"Yes."

She remained exactly where she was.

Master Clair waited.

Diana wrote: I DISLIKE THIS.

"I assumed."

Then he held out a booklet.

BASIC DRAGON SAFETY AND BEHAVIORAL MARKS

Diana read the title, then raised her slate.

"His Grace asked what you were expected to understand if we intended to keep involving you in observation."

Raigoro stood farther down the passage speaking with one of the cavern guards.

He had asked that?

He had spent most of their marriage asking what Diana knew.

This time, without her asking for anything, he had asked what she needed to know.

The difference was small enough that nobody else in the passage appeared to notice it.

Diana did.

Master Clair continued. "I agreed that if we expect useful information from you, then you need enough knowledge to recognize what you are looking at."

He tapped the booklet.

"Safety first. Warning behavior. Keeper handling marks. Common terms. The difference between a behavior note and a medical observation."

Diana opened the first page.

The drawings were terrible.

She turned another.

They remained terrible.

She wrote: WHO DREW THESE?

"A keeper with more accuracy than talent."

That explained several things.

Diana turned toward an anatomical illustration near the back.

Master Clair closed the booklet with two fingers.

"Warning behavior first."

Diana looked at him.

"You may become interested in anatomy after learning how not to stand in front of an angry dragon."

Reasonable again.

Raigoro finished with the guard and came closer.

Diana held up the booklet.

YOU ASKED FOR THIS?

"I asked what you were supposed to learn if Master Clair expected you to participate."

She studied him.

He added, "You are the person experiencing half the unexplained reactions. It seemed useful for you to understand what everyone is recording."

No compliment.

No statement about gifts or destiny.

Diana liked the answer more for that and decided to leave.

By the time she reached the upper stairs, she had already opened the booklet again.

Alma took it from her before they descended.

Diana stopped.

"Stairs," Alma said.

Diana held out one hand.

"You nearly walked into the wall above the northern landing."

That had happened once.

Alma kept the booklet.

Diana descended with the expression of a political prisoner.

Once they reached her writing room, Alma returned it.

The first section mostly taught Diana how easily a person could misunderstand a dragon.

A lowered head meant little by itself. Weariness, pain, submission, and preparation to strike could resemble one another until the jaw, wings, tail, and breathing were considered with it.

Six drawings showed tail positions.

The third was labeled DISCOMFORT.

The fourth was WARNING.

Diana studied them until she noticed the tighter muscles at the base of the tail in the fourth drawing.

Alma leaned over her shoulder.

"That?"

Diana nodded.

"I would already have left before checking."

Sensible.

Diana read on.

A household clerk arrived with a room-allocation request after the Muster departures. Diana handled it, signed the transfer, and reopened the booklet before the man had finished gathering his papers.

The clerk and Alma exchanged a look. Neither commented.

By midday, Diana had marked several pages with scraps of paper.

One concerned warning posture.

Another explained the keeper hand signals.

A third described pain-related guarding around an injured wing.

Diana took the booklet with her when she went to inspect the return of two eastern guest rooms to ordinary household use.

She stopped afterward in an upper Dragon Heights gallery.

Below, a broad brown dragon stood while a keeper inspected one rear foot.

The dragon kept lifting the foot before the keeper finished.

Diana opened the booklet.

The tail remained loose.

Jaw relaxed.

The wing remained loose.

Annoyance, perhaps.

Or impatience.

She did not write either one.

"Studying?"

Raigoro’s voice came from behind her.

He had come from Command Terrace carrying two sealed reports.

Several scraps protruded from the booklet.

"Clair gave you that just this morning."

She nodded.

"You have marked half of it."

Diana wrote: IT IS BADLY ORGANIZED.

Raigoro looked at the book.

"You have read it anyway."

THAT IS HOW I KNOW.

He looked toward the dragon below.

"What have you learned?"

Diana considered.

Then: TAILS ARE UNREASONABLY COMPLICATED.

The brown dragon swept its tail sideways and struck a bucket hard enough to send it rolling across the court.

Raigoro watched the keeper chase it.

"Fair."

Diana’s mouth almost moved.

A Dragonkeeper appeared at the end of the gallery at a run.

"Your Grace."

Raigoro turned immediately.

The man’s attention shifted to Diana.

"Master Clair requests both of you below. Vharos will not settle."

Diana had the booklet closed before he finished.

Led through the secured route by the Dragonkeeper, they reached Vharos’s cavern within minutes.

Vharos was not roaring or attempting to stand.

Somehow, the quieter signs looked worse.

He repeatedly raised and lowered his head. One claw scraped the bedding stone every few breaths.

Healer Lou had already completed another examination.

"No fever. No new abdominal finding. His breathing is elevated because he will not settle. His pain is higher than this morning, but not enough to explain all of this."

Raigoro looked toward Vharos. "What have you changed?"

"Nothing yet beyond the dose already due. I want to know what I am treating before I increase anything. More medicine will not help if pain is not what is driving the agitation."

Diana looked toward Vharos.

His head lifted again. One foreclaw scraped across the bedding stone.

"What happens if he keeps getting more agitated?" Raigoro asked.

"I examine him again. If the pain rises, his breathing changes for another reason, he stops drinking, or I find a new physical sign, I change the treatment. Right now, I have an agitated dragon with no new medical finding that explains the degree of it."

Master Clair looked toward Diana.

"And yesterday we recorded one condition that changed the agitation."

Diana understood before he pointed toward the first observation mark.

"I want the same distance as yesterday."

Diana moved into position.

The dragonstone warmed.

Vharos turned his head toward her.

His foreclaw stopped scraping.

Everyone kept working.

Master Clair watched the timer.

Healer Lou counted his breathing.

Diana watched everything else.

The tail tension she had just spent half the morning studying began to ease.

She raised her slate. CLAW STOPPED.

Then: BREATHING SLOWER.

And after looking again: TAIL LESS TENSE.

Master Clair read the notes.

"Good."

The word felt different today.

He pointed back toward the outer mark.

Diana frowned.

"Only the distance. We are not waiting until tomorrow to see whether the change repeats."

She moved away.

For several seconds Vharos remained still.

Then his head lifted.

The foreclaw shifted again.

Diana stopped at the farther mark.

Master Clair waited just long enough for the change to become clear.

"Forward."

She returned.

Vharos settled more slowly this time, but the pattern repeated.

Healer Lou looked from the breathing count to Vharos.

"That changes what I do."

Raigoro looked at her.

"I still treat the pain. But I am not increasing his medicine simply because he is restless when part of the restlessness appears to change with her distance."

Master Clair closed the board.

"Enough."

Diana looked at him.

He understood.

"He needs rest more than I need another number."

That ended the argument before Diana made it.

Healer Lou confirmed the existing pain regimen and instructed the keepers to wait before offering food again. Water was brought instead. Vharos drank some without lifting his head fully.

Only after he settled did Master Clair turn back to Diana.

"If he remains medically stable overnight, we do a controlled session tomorrow."

Diana glanced toward the observation area.

"And bring another chair," Master Clair added.

Raigoro glanced at him.

"For Her Grace," Master Clair said.

Diana looked down at the dragon-safety booklet beneath her arm.

This morning, no had meant Vharos was stable enough that they would not bring her down merely to see what happened.

Tomorrow, if he remained stable, Master Clair wanted her there anyway.

The second chair was for observation.