"By the gods. You really are totally dry. No wonder you took a drink from the basin. How long has it been since they gave you anything, eh?" He took the empty glass from her and disappeared briefly, came back with a tall jug fogged with condensation from which he poured more fruit juice and handed it to her, crouching nearby with a serious expression.
And again she threw back the drink with a single draft. He refilled the glass until the jug was empty.
"More?" he asked her, worried, but she just shook her head, gasping quietly.
"Something to eat?" he asked her further.
She could hardly hold back the tears now. "Why are you still bothering, anyway?" she blurted, but he just shook his head in irritation and said nothing.
She just didn't get it. "Hey, monster, you only have one thing in mind, anyway, so get on with it! I don't give a shit!" she shot at him with such a shrill edge, her own head began to buzz.
His expression darkened as he held her chin with his thumb and forefinger and looked at her intently. "You don't give a shit about what? What exactly do you think I'm going to do with you now, huh?" he asked, sounding to her menacingly tender.
She tore her face away, but he dug his fingers into her hair and half bent over her. "Rahel, answer me! Why are you so angry and nasty to me?" His voice was hard now. At the same time, he began to do something with his fingers. They warmed... It began to feel almost as though she were taking off, floating, so light did her body become. Suddenly she felt drawn to look at him and couldn't look away; his green eyes captivated her and a strange compulsion worked on her. His words reverberated like waves in her head and the answer came involuntarily to her mind and out of her mouth before she could stop herself:
"You are a dragon and you will soon kill me in an awful way."
He froze and then shook his head, frowning. "Oh yes? How exactly do you think ... And do the other girls who came here today think the same thing?" he asked her, his words still echoing strangely in her ears. She registered that he was gritting his teeth now. She couldn't tear herself away from his gaze, couldn't just shut her mouth and keep silent. This force seemed to pluck the answer straight from her head: "The dragon monsters only need us girls to mate with and produce offspring. Either we girls die during mating or we are soon torn apart by the spawn who grow very quickly in our stomachs through dragon magic. We are eaten alive by the spawn as they birthe... Dragons are like parasitic wasps..." she said flatly to him. Then the apparent spell broke. At the same time, the Leader staggered away from her, panting hard, and suddenly he was roaring horribly, so that Rahel could only sob with fear, cover her ears protectively, and bury her head into her knees again.
The Rugart fellow was there in a flash, as was the other guy, the brown-haired giant who had grabbed the Asian girl. "Leader?" They both looked startled.
"The people in the Germanic area apparently told our girls horror stories about us," he answered. "By Drodar's hell! She actually believes that we'll mate with them in dragon form and tear them apart alive. And if they should somehow survive, then instead of being born, our dragon boys will eat their way out of them, also in dragon form. That they'll tear them up from the inside out and feed on them," he growled hideously at the brown-haired man.
"Did your girl actually tell you that?" asked the brown-haired guy now, looking shocked.
"Yes. But only under truthspell. She was so nasty and suddenly she yelled at me to stop being nice. I just thought she was angry and wanted to find out what was behind it, what she really thought, what was going to happen. Then she told me this hare-brained story, which she really seriously believes." His eyes glowed and sparked as he looked back at Rahel, who just regarded him in horror, her eyes wide.
"That's why she's so short with you instead of holding back a bit and waiting it out. And I was wondering why the little junkie was so bitchy. I mean, they certainly warned them before... that you're a Leader and what you're looking for. So she deliberately provoked you just so you'd take her out faster?"
"I think she just didn't give a shit, Rugart. They totally got into her head with this story about us dragons. She thinks it'll all be over soon anyway. Maybe I'll tear her apart a little faster than everyone else because she made me angry earlier," he said with a growl. He calmed himself then and looked down at Rahel, who was breathing audibly in long drags, hugging herself—she almost seemed to be panicking. No, he didn't want her to do that.
"Now go and tell the others. Who knows what other countries have told the girls about us dragons? You should all check that out, right? And be careful tonight that the girls don't kill themselves for fear or do anything else stupid.
By Drodar and Aschnie! I have to go to the Mog'a'gur. Last year and the year before last, someone should have asked the German and Irish girls why they all fought tooth and nail with constant suicide threats against their companions—if they had, they might have gotten off on better footing. Why they preferred to kill themselves instead of just continuing to live here. Now we have the answer. They had all been primed with the fear of certain death."
"Poor little junkie!" Rugart muttered, wonderingly, looking past him at Rahel, who couldn't understand why the Leader had called in his friends and why his gaze now seemed so concerned.
The other boys had already disappeared again and the Leader turned to look at her, took a deep breath, and then gestured to the left.
"Maybe you want to rest now. If you're tired. Of course, you have your own bed, Rahel. One that belongs only to you, as long as you don't want any other arrangement," he calmly explained.
She was too far gone to understand.
"But I want a different arrangement," she said to him, sounding decisive, with a devilish edge. He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
She clenched her hands into hard fists and scowled at him. "Anything to be back with my family. I don't want to wait any longer." she said to him icily.
He nodded in understanding and took a deep breath. "So the only reason you're so pissed off and defiant towards me is because you fear neither retribution nor injury nor death, which you have already prepared for internally, right?" he said thoughtfully. "If you have nothing left to lose, you either get down and crawl, shitting your pants with fear, or you go out bravely, yelling at everything and everyone until it's over. It's a good thing I now know what kind of person you are." He smiled a little sadly and then crouched down in front of her again, his brow furrowed. "You will certainly not believe me now, but unfortunately I have to tell you that you will not be torn apart during sex today or at any other time, because I don't carry out this act in dragon form. And you won't be eaten by some baby dragon that you might at some point carry... That is, if you ever decide to become a mother.
Your body is yours alone, but your company is now mine. I just haven't got any more rights to you. And since I already know your name—Rahel Beckers—even if you didn't introduce yourself to me personally. I don't want to be just as rude and not introduce myself to you now:
I am Hirion ab'n Angarr from Darkengaard, Hiro to my friends and also to you, if you want. I acquired the right to be Leader of this group of dragons in last year's fighting matches. We aim to become a separate clan closely linked by fate and struggle. We all just made it through the Drrûff, the dragon pupa—and I can see you are not listening to me anymore..." he stated when her eyes wandered and became blurry; she was atuned to some internal sounds: a loud rustling, the laughing of her three little brothers, her mother's call to eat... her stomach grumbling.
He grabbed her shoulders again then and destroyed the beautiful memory bubble by pulling her up and standing her on her feet. "Go along there!" He turned her in the direction he wanted her to take, but she only startled again and jerked away from his hand. He pushed her around the tree trunk to an even larger platform that seemed to be built into the center of the sequoia. Wow. It was like a heavenly cathedral bathed in sunlight. She looked up and around in astonishment. But the dragon turned her again by the shoulders, towards the open tree trunk, which then turned into a kind of modern living space. "You are tired and certainly hungry now because I can hear your stomach rumbling at a distance of more than a mile. So now you will simply eat something and then go to sleep!" he ordered her with a sigh.