Margueritte awoke, startled by the dim light, and she sat straight up.  Runt rolled off her stomach where it had curled up for the night.  She could barely make out her surroundings as the morning sun came streaming down the cave but just eked into the tomb cavern.

Several of the babies were already awake, burrowing in and out of the coins in a game of tag or chase me.  Mother also looked awake and turned an eye on Margueritte as she sat up.  Mother was smoking.

“Mother.”  Margueritte said, just to be sure.

“Baby.”  The dragon mother responded, and Marguerite let out her breath.

“This is not going to work.”  Margueritte decided, and she felt hungry.  That little bit of horse flesh did not satisfy.  Runt crawled up to face her, and she petted its head as she flopped back down on the coins.  Again, her armor protected her from the impossibly hard bedding, though she did not suppose it would be worse sleeping in a gravel pit.  Her armor, though, felt light as air, and the under things that came with the armor were immensely comfortable.  That was why she slept, she thought.  That and the dragon song.

As she petted Runt, she thought about how the beasts were made.  Even with feathers on the outside, the dragons had their own sort of armor.  It actually worked something like a finely jointed exoskeleton.  They could give the appearance of slithering like snakes, but really, they were more like insects in that respect.  Worms, indeed, she thought.  Of course, if they had bones on the inside, they would have been much too heavy to leave the ground.  It was only because of their almost impenetrable but extremely light exoskeleton, set like scales she imagined, that their wings proved strong enough.

“Fly.”  Margueritte said to Runt.  Runt lifted happily from the ground and circled her head several times, singing.  “Wrap.”  Margueritte held out her good arm.  The creature wrapped and succumbed to more petting.  That was when Margueritte noticed her burns were not hurting and, in fact, they were nearly healed.

Of course, she had no way of knowing that she had slept for almost two and a half weeks.  Her father just then, with Roland and Chief Brian, set out to fetch her, having figured out what happened.  Canto confessed.

Margueritte eyed the mother dragon then until she got the creature’s attention.  “Hungry.”  Margueritte tried at last.  She figured she had nothing to lose.

Mother dragon stirred.  Most of the little ones were awake by then.  Two or three stuck their heads up from the golden pile and echoed Margueritte’s word.  “Hungry.”

“Sheep.  Cow.”  Margueritte tried once again, but the great dragon said nothing, merely curled around to slither out the cave entrance, temporarily blocking out nearly all the dim light.  Margueritte got up to follow and the babies went with her.  At the entrance to the cave, Mother had one more word before she took to the sky.  “Stay.”  Margueritte marveled.  She honestly did not know if the Agdaline were aware that adult dragons used command language on their own children, or if the Agdaline had bred that in on purpose.  The babies stayed, and Margueritte felt obliged to stay with them, at least until Mother flew out of sight.

Margueritte headed for the lip of the rise, though the babies tried to stop her.  “Stay.  Stay.”  A couple of them became quite verbal.

“Runt.”  Margueritte called.  She only felt a bit surprised that little one had already learned its name.  She saw a lone tree near the bottom of the hill, one not utterly charred.  A few green leaves tenaciously hung to the top branches.  Margueritte paused.  She did not know the word for green in Agdaline, and for a moment she wondered if the Agdaline were color blind, living, as it were, in a black and white world.

“Shades of gray,” she told herself in her own tongue.  “Runt.”  She got the baby’s full attention.  “Tree.  Leaf.  Fetch.”  She said the words even as several of the other babies got agitated.

“Stay.”  One of the babies breathed, but Runt looked delighted with the command.  It rushed to the tree, snapped off a twig with its razor-sharp teeth, nearly a branch, really, which sported several leaves, and rushed back to Margueritte like the most obedient puppy.  Margueritte watched.  There were still a few men among the rocks.  She found this no surprise, though she had imagined she had only slept one night.

When Runt returned, several of the babies were eyeing her, suspiciously; but she took the leaves and tickled Runt, and soon enough, they all wanted to be tickled.  It was great fun, until Margueritte fell suddenly to her knees.  Three babies immediately went to her.  One tried to lift her up and nearly snagged its teeth in her chain mail.  She felt very grateful to Hephaestus at that moment, but she did get to her hands and knees and mouth what was on her mind. “Hungry,” she said.  Several babies agreed.

Then she heard the men on the hill.  It seemed as if they had been waiting for the dragon to leave the lair.  And now they had seen a baby and better knew what they were dealing with.  Margueritte chided herself for stupidly exposing the infant.  “Home!”  Margueritte commanded, though she hardly had strength to talk.  “To the nest.”  She pointed and prepared to give herself up.  She had no idea why she should have suddenly become so weak.  But three of the babies were not going to give up.  They wrapped her wrists and middle as they had in the night and dragged her to the entrance.  Runt stayed behind to chirp urgency and growl at the approaching men.

“Go!”  Margueritte commanded as she staggered to her feet.  “Go!”  The babies went but hovered nearby.  “Hide,” she added the words.  “Nest.  Hide.”  She clearly heard the men by then.  They were getting close.

Once the babies were out of sight, though they may have been just beyond the light, Margueritte fell to her knees once more.  She felt utterly drained of energy, and famished, and she knew something was not right.  Runt stayed with her.  It looked over her shoulder when she heard the Irishman.

“Funny looking wee one, my dear,” McVey said.

“Not a little one.”  Margueritte struggled to her feet and faced the man.  There were four others with him, not nearly as many as she imagined from before.

“A queer bird, then,” McVey held his hand out to stop the men from rushing her.  He clearly wanted to know what he was dealing with before venturing in.

“Not a bird.”  Margueritte said as Runt darted forward.  “Ankh!”  It breathed, showed its’ razor teeth, and then darted back to Margueritte’s side.  That was a warning.

“Not a…”  Finnian McVey stopped speaking and all at once his eyes lit up.  “A baby!”  He understood and shouted the word.  It echoed off the rocks and down into the tomb.  “Hang the wee ones.  The charmed Lady has provided even better.”  He started to drool.  “Get the baby,” he ordered.  “And the garl if yeh can.”  He drawled the afterthought.

Four men sprang forward, not having the least idea what they were facing, having only the word “baby” to go on and thinking that sounded harmless enough.

The babies rushed out of the darkness and counter attacked.  One man jumped back to look at the stump where his finger had been.  It got snapped off as cleanly as Runt had snapped off the tree branch.  Two men found themselves wrapped and tied up, squeezed to death before their throats were ripped out.  The fourth simply stopped where he was, a look of utter disbelief on his face as a baby simply bored right through his stomach and came out his back.

Finnian McVey had backed well away, and had drawn a sword, and Margueritte knew that might be a serious threat to the babies.

“Babies!  Nest!”  Margueritte ordered.  “Now!  Nest!”  She yelled, and the babies were bred to obey.

“Protect.  Defend.”  One of the bigger babies mouthed to her.

Margueritte immediately got surrounded by the little ones.  She saw a runt, no longer than her arm.  She spoke to him, soothing words, as her charred fingertips tried to untie her other hand.  She dared not ask their help because she knew their razor-sharp teeth were designed to rip chunks off burning carcasses.

At last she got free, and the babies seemed delighted.  The runt seemed particularly pleased and friendly.  “Wrap.”  Margueritte said as she held out her good arm.  The Beast immediately curled around her arm from above her elbow down to place its’ head on the back of her hand.  It began to purr, after a fashion.

“Fly.”  Marguerite said, and the creature unwrapped and took to the air with equal delight.  Several of the others began to act like they were jealous, but Margueritte felt a moment of tremendous relief which even temporarily overcame the pain in her fingers, hand and arm.  She knew these little ones had to obey.  Thousands of years of special breeding insured that, and she knew these still feathered little ones did not even smoke.

“Sing.”  She called out, and the little dragons began a harmony of song to make the birds envious.  They sang, and then they seemed to want her to go into the cave with them.  Margueritte was not about to do that.  Instead, she turned toward the path she had come up.  The babies followed her.

“No.  Stay.”  Margueritte insisted, but the runt came up to her face and seemed to have puppy-dog eyes.  Poor Margueritte was always a sucker for puppy-dog eyes.  She reached out with her good hand to pet the beast.  It purred again.  “Stay.”  She said, sweetly.  “Go be with your brothers and sisters.”  She pointed to the others that were trying to do as they were told.

Margueritte got to the rise as the runt went sadly back to the others.  They were all watching her.  “Baby.”  One of the dragon babies mouthed the word.  “Stay.”  Another baby said in imitation of her own word.  Margueritte smiled but began to step down the hill before Mother came back.  She only got about five steps along, before she saw the men come out from the rocks below.  They had evidently prepared well in advance.  They had places in the rocks intended to protect them from the worm but from which they could watch the hill.  Margueritte knew there would be no escape in that direction.

“Get her!”  Margueritte heard that command and fled back up to the waiting and overjoyed babies.  A quick survey suggested she had no other way down, at least no easy way which would not require a significant climb over cliffs of rock face.

“Home.  Inside.  Hide!”  Margueritte commanded the babies, and they followed and lead the way into the dragon’s lair.  She stopped far enough into the dark to be hidden, but near enough to still see the light and hear the approach of the men.  She imagined it cost Finnian McVey a small fortune to entice men to stay so close to a dragon’s lair.

“She’s gone into the cave,” one man said.  “Nowhere else for her to hide.”

“Check around the rocks.  Vagi, check over the cave entrance.”

“I’m not going in there,” one man balked.

“But the dragon’s gone,” the first man said.  “We saw it take to the air.”

Margueritte became suddenly aware of the babies around her.  The runt, rested on her shoulder, its head beside her head, looking with her.  Another had wrapped around her left leg and she petted it as well as she could with her hurting hand, just to keep it quiet.  A third brushed against her good arm as if to say it wanted some of that petting action as well.  The others had settled near her feet, resting from flight, three curled in little balls, like rattlesnakes ready to strike.  She had to protect them.  She already felt attached, especially to the runt, and she would kill these men, somehow, if they so much as harmed a feather.

“But it might come back,” the man protested.  “We don’t know where it has gone.”

“Go on, I tell you.  The beast has left.”

Marguerite heard the grousing, but also careful steps into the cave.  “No,” she cried out.  “Follow.”  She commanded the babies, even while she knew that the men in the entrance would hear.  The babies obeyed, and she ran into the dark and stumbled only once before she felt far enough in.  She looked back.  She saw what looked for a moment like torch light, and then she heard men yelling and screaming.  Mother must have returned, she surmised.

Three babies almost went for the entrance, but Margueritte shouted.  “Stay.  Wait.”  They waited, but impatiently.  And when Margueritte could no longer hear the roars, she said “Go.”

Eight babies darted for the entrance.  Margueritte and her runt followed at a more leisurely pace, and Margueritte only hoped the runt would keep Mother from having her for dessert.

When they got to the cave entrance, the runt started pulling on her arm with anticipation.  The smell of cooked horse was overwhelming, along with burnt something else which Margueritte did not want to think about.

“Babies.  Eat.”  The mother dragon surprised Margueritte, stuck its’ snout behind her back to fling her and the runt at the horse.  Margueritte might have been seriously injured if she had not been armored head to toe.  As it was, she almost landed on one of the babies, and that would have been worse.  The baby stuck its head up and looked at her.

“Eat.”  It echoed Mother’s word before it burrowed into the horse’s innards.  Margueritte felt for a moment as if she was going to be sick, but then her runt stuck its head up and repeated the word.

“Eat.”

With a glance at the mother dragon, Margueritte pulled a small blade from her boot.  She stuck her nose against the horse, bad as it smelled, and cut herself a piece off the least disturbed place.  She slipped the knife home, hopefully unnoticed, picked up the chunk of horse flesh and examined it.  “At least it’s cooked,” she spoke to herself for the first time in her native tongue.  It had been a long time since her last crust of stale bread.  She ate, and added to herself, “At least I won’t starve.”

After supper, Mother dragon had another word.  “Sleep,” she said.  The sun started to set, and Mother guarded the babies as they ate, and now let them go in first.  Margueritte was very reluctant to go, but one of the babies echoed, “Sleep,” and coiled around her wrist guard and began to pull.  Two others got the idea.  One grabbed her other wrist, and another wrapped around her waist.  Again, there is no doubt Margueritte would have been injured if she was not dressed in chain mail, forged in the fires of Mount Etna by Hephaestus himself.

Mother dragon leaned down to nudge them along, but this time it was a gentle nudge.  “Babies sleep.”  The words followed.  They went into the dark, and Margueritte wished she had some light to see.  A thought crossed her mind, though she was at a loss as to which temporal connection put it there.  She remembered the electrical something-or-other she had exhibited when she put the hag out of commission.  She tried to make a spark.  It came, as she hoped, from her eyes, but it was pitiful.  It shone for a moment off a thousand points right where the cave opened-up into the tomb area.  Margueritte gulped, as a great burst of flame blew over her head, nearly singing her hair.  Mother came right behind them.  And then mother touched her back with her snout and purred like an infant, as if this Margueritte baby was showing the first sparks of growing up.

Margueritte, fortunately grasped the layout of the tomb.  She saw the babies curled up on a great pile of gold, coins and jewels.  “Nesting material,” Marguerite said to herself, and she understood something in that moment which she had always wondered.  She found her way to the pile and curled up in the middle of the babies.  She planned to be surrounded by them at every chance she got, in case Mother had a change of heart.  And while she thought she would never really be able to sleep in a dragon’s lair, in fact the gentle sounds of the sleeping babies turned out to be a perfect lullaby.  It was the last sound the Agdaline heard as they drifted off to sleep for a hundred or a thousand years in their sleepers while their ship inched through the endless void among the stars.