Weysh never answered a single question. He and Yenni were having a tough enough time figuring things out without the dailies sticking their noses into their relationship, and it was easy to escape the reporters when he could fly, but they still found a way to spin the rags to riches story of his life. Whole interviews appeared that he’d never given, some of them quite entertaining. Harth certainly enjoyed them.

He’d come running up to Weysh, daily paper fluttering in hand and summarize the latest nonsense. Loudly. “Weysh, how can it be, in all the time we’ve known each other, you never told me of your secret ambition to design extravagant hats made of your shed dragon scales?” Or “Weysh! Watcher above, I had no idea you were so self-conscious about your residual dragon tail! You know that little stub that remains for some reason when you turn back into a man? You should have confided in me! Good thing Yenni doesn’t mind it, en? It seems you fell head over tail for her when she accepted you just as you are, stub and all. It’s all right here. What a love story for the ages—ow!”

Weysh boxed him on the ear for that one.

At last, in an effort to get some peace, when they both had a free afternoon Weysh flew Yenni to a nice, hidden area on the bank of the River Noureer where it cut through the south of the campus. And now, at Yenni’s insistence, he was practicing using runes in dragon, again. They worked with a wall of green trees as their backdrop and the rushing water their musical score. Yenni sang the hymn for wind as she painted the scales of Weysh’s nose bridge. She sang to infuse the rune, but he knew that she also sang to him. Weysh closed his eyes, enjoying her voice.

Yenni tied off the rune with a low, soothing note and Weysh sighed, his whole bulk shifting up then down. She laughed softly and gave him a kiss on the nose before reaching for her spear. “All right, Weh-sheh,” she said as she unscrewed the sharp metal tip. “Let’s begin.” He would practice his runes while she would practice her Creshen spellcraft.

She attacked with her spear, augmenting herself with Creshen spells, and he was supposed to be calling on the runes she’d drawn to defend himself, but he constantly forgot, switching into the old defensive strategies that had been drilled into him over the years. He’d never been particularly adept at magic in human, and in dragon it was incredibly difficult and awkward.

“Great golden sky turtles, Weh-sheh!” Yenni would yell every time, exasperated. “Use your runes!” But he would only lumber over and nuzzle against her until she was no longer annoyed.