What is to become of Me?

A new deleted scene (or maybe not…) from the upcoming book!

Walker slipped through the open passage door, silent and dark as death. Had he been prey, Darcy would have been dead. Leaving the door to the dragon passages open was one of those little acts of trust that marked the decades of their Friendship.

Walker glided to the mantle, above the low fire warming Darcy’s chamber at the Blue Order offices. A little show of dominance, being over Darcy’s head, that both was and was not a demonstration of dominance. That Darcy permitted it was a statement of his esteem for Walker.

No one ever suggested having dragon Friends was simple or uncomplicated.

“I imagine this means you have no new news.” Darcy murmured, staring into his half-empty tumbler of port. It was tempting to drown himself in it, but something insisted he be ready at a moment’s notice, so he merely used it to knock the razor’s edge off his anxiety.

“No.” Walker hissed the word, wings half-extended. “You need to talk to April.”

“I saw her just a few hours ago when I brought her a fresh jam and honey pot from Darcy House. I still do not understand why no one here deigns to provide her with sufficient sweets. It is not as though any other dragons have the penchant for them that fairy dragons do.”

“That may be the issue all told.” Walker lifted his foot and picked at something between his toes. “Go talk to her. Now. She is with Lady Wentworth in the ladies’ sitting room.”

It was late, and Darcy was tired, and hardly in the mood for company. But what sort of Friend would he be to ignore such a demand?

He set his port aside and pushed up from the large leather chair. Had he aged so much in the last few weeks that he could no longer mange that easily? Gardiner and Bennet certainly had.

Darcy knocked at the ladies’ door, the inlaid agate eyes of the drake carved into the door staring back at him. Was that disapproval in its expression.

“I am so glad to see you, Sir Fitzwilliam.” Lady Wentworth opened the door and ushered him in. The first rays of sunset filtered into the room, painting it dramatic reds and oranges. “She will not tell me what is troubling her, but it is clear that something is very much.”

“Would it be an imposition to ask you to permit me some time alone with her?”

“I had planned on it. Corn and Wall will come with me as well. We shall be in the library if you have need of us.” She slipped past him, the two wyrmlings in her wake.

The door clicked shut behind him and he scanned the room. Signs of Elizabeth’s sisters were strewn everywhere. A sewing basket, laying open on its side in the middle of the couch. Books, probably Georgiana’s, sitting open on a nearby chair. A half-finished board game occupied a small table near the window. And April’s fairy dragon ‘cage’ on the mantle to keep warm  near the fireplace.

At least she would be warm there.

A little mass of blue huddled on the cage floor, shuddering.

Did fairy dragons cry?

It only took five steps to cross the length of the room to the cage. “April?”

She did not even lift her head.

“Are you well?”

“No. No I am not.” She tucked her beaky nose under her wing.

“Pray, come out and tell me about it.” He offered his hand as a perch. “I did bring you the jam and honey as you requested.”

She lifted her head slightly and looked at him with one eye, evaluating, considering. Her entire being drooping, she hopped to his hand.

He pulled a chair close to the low first and sat down, holding her close to eye level. “Pray tell me, what is wrong?”

“What is wrong? What sort of fool are you? Everything is wrong and you know it. Everything is wrong!”

He stroked the back of her neck, soothing ruffled feather-scales. “Beyond the very obvious. What is wrong?”

She rocked back and forth, keening softly. Her mournful notes pinched his heart. “What is to become of me? What is to become of me?”

“Become of you? Whatever do you mean?”

“If … if … something happens to her? What is to become of me?”

Of course. It was so obvious now that she voiced it. But it was a good question. He drew a breath to speak, but released it in a sigh. That was not the right thing to say. Nor was that. Nor that. “What do you want? That is to say, should you not be the one to decide that?”

She looked up at him, head turned half upside down. “Do you mean that?”

“Of course, I do. You know I am not apt to say what I do not mean.”

“I am to choose my own fate, my own direction?” Her eyes grew large as if surprised.

“Certainly. And in so far as I am able, I will see to it your wishes are honored.” He scratched under her chin. “I hope though, that if such a decision does become necessary, that you would choose to stay with me. I know I am not your particular Friend—”

She chirped, loud and sharp and pecked his hand. “I have never said that.”

It was difficult not to drop her when she did that. “I would not presume—”

“You do not need to. You are my … Friend … like she is.” She ran her cheek along his hand.

Darcy swallowed back a lump in his throat. “I am honored.”

“I know. That’s why you are my Friend.”

He drew her close to his chest, and she leaned into him. “Somehow my little Friend, we will all get through this and things will be right in the world once more. I do not know how. But they will.”

So what do you think? Any speculations about what might be doing on to cause such angst for little April? Tell me in the comments.