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Alaric looked into her eyes and smiled his Draconian grin. "I would like nothing more." He pulled his member out of her before he pulled his tail out.

She let out a little moan and grinned back. "Same here, my love. Same here," she said, bringing a hand up to caress the underside of his jaw.

Alaric stood after a little while. "We should prepare for Nashita's return."

Giada nodded and got up from the bed. She smiled to herself as she pulled her clothes on. She was going to be deliciously sore by the next morning, she could tell. A moment later, she heard the front door open and her little sister's voice calling, "Gia, are you home?" Giada walked out into the hall. "I'm here, Nashita. Go ahead and get yourself cleaned up while I get dinner ready, okay?" The girl nodded and rushed to do as she was told. Giada headed into the kitchen, and soon the smell of cooking fish filled the small house.

After Giada had shooed Nashita away to clean herself, Alaric went out to the dining area and waited for the delicious smelling fish. It was not often that he had cooked fish, only raw from the sea.

As they sat down to eat, Nashita seemed to flit back and forth between fidgeting excitedly and eating the food on her plate morosely. Giada raised an eyebrow at the girl, who stopped fidgeting immediately. "Do we have to leave?" she asked. "I don't want to go away from my friends." Giada shook her head. "Nashita, that's what the tunnel I told you about is for."

Alaric waited until he was finished eating before speaking to Nashita.

"But what about your classes?" Nashita asked. Giada blew out a breath, chuckling. "It's the same as when I go diving, 'Shita. Just in the opposite direction. I'll still keep my teaching schedule. Just instead of leaving town to go diving, I'll be coming back into the village to sell my wares. And I'll use the tunnel to get back and forth from my workshop."

"You're sister is right, Nashita. You can use the tunnel to come back to the village every day, so long as nobody ever learns about it. I made sure to hide it as well as I could, but please keep it a secret."

Nashita nodded solemnly. "I can keep a secret." After that, she quickly finished her supper and cleaned up the table. "Can we see it now?" she asked.

"I do not see how that would be a problem," he responded as he backed his chair away from the table. "We will leave when you two are ready to leave."

"Just let me clean off those dishes, then we can go," Giada said, going into the kitchen. She came back out a couple minutes later, wiping her hands on her skirt. "All right, then. Let's go," she smiled. Alaric picked up Nashita and when they were outside set her on his shoulders as they walked out of the village. Most of the villagers were in their own houses, eating the evening meal with their families, as Alaric, Nashita and Giada left the village, so there was no gossip to be had this time.

A few weeks had passed, and the little family had fallen into a little routine quickly. While Giada went diving and Nashita went into town, Alaric would either convene with his servants or fly off the island in search of a new gem mine or some a new place to graze. On one such day, Giada caught sight of something bobbing in the surf as she walked down the beach, heading for her usual jump-off point. At first, she thought it was a piece of driftwood or a tangle of kelp, but the shape and color was a bit off. By the gods! Was that a person? Giada dropped her sack and ran for the water, diving in and stroking swiftly for the far-off figure. She reached the figure just as they started to sink beneath the waves. She grabbed the person's arm and draped it over her shoulder so their head was above the water, wet fur brushing against her back. Wait, fur? No, she'd ponder that later. She didn't have time for it now. She swam back to shore and laid the person she'd rescued--well, hoped she'd rescued--on the sand. It was a woman with strange, mouse-like features including a tail and ears. Giada blinked in wonder, then shook her head and put her ear to the mouse-woman's chest, listening for a heartbeat. She found one, but it was weak, and when she held a hand over the woman's mouth, she could barely feel the warmth of a breath on her palm. Immediately, Giada pressed the heel of her hand against the mouse-woman's chest and started pumping her arms, trying to force the water from the woman's lungs.

The mouse woman sputtered water after almost a minute of the woman's ministrations. She flopped and flailed as she spit up water, but after she was done, lay dormant once more. Giada rolled the mouse woman onto her side so she wouldn't inhale the water she'd just spit up. When she was sure there was no more water in the other woman's lungs, Giada crouched and pulled the woman up so she was draped across her shoulders as she had been when Giada pulled her from the sea. The mouse woman was much heavier out of the water, and most of that weight seemed to be muscle. Giada shifted so she could carry her somewhat comfortably and headed back to the cave she shared with Alaric.

The female warrior was lucky to have no lost any of her equipment to the sea. She stayed unconscious for the next several hours. While the other woman was unconscious, Giada had laid her out, with the help of one of Alaric's servants, in an empty chamber of the cave and found a pillow for the woman's head and covered her with a blanket from the servants' quarters. She'd also removed the woman's equipment so she could rest comfortably. It hadn't been moved far; just next to the wall a few feet away. Then Giada left the servant there to watch over the mouse woman and went into the area of the cave that she had turned into her workroom to work with the pearls and coral she already had since she knew she wouldn't be getting any diving done that day.

The male servant left with the mouse woman walked tentatively into Giada's work room. "Miss Giada? The female is awake."

Giada looked up from her work and stood, nodding to the servant. "Thank you." She left the workroom and went to the chamber where she'd left the mouse woman, looking in with a kind smile. "Ah, it's good to see you've awakened," she said.

The woman Giada was talking to watched her as she began donning her "clothes" once again. "The last thing I remember was being bucked overboard," she said simply.

"Overboard?" Giada asked. "Were you on a ship? I haven't seen any craft other than fishing boats around recently."

"I was on a ship, yes. That damned storm grew wicked with expedience." There was the sense that while she was telling the truth, she was merely conveying only enough information to answer the present question.

"Hm. You must have been far off-shore." It wasn't exactly a question. Giada sensed that the woman wasn't telling her more than the barest facts, but she wasn't going to ask more than she needed to know.

Ankh looked at the human before her. "I do not know how long I was in the ocean." She looked about the cavernous home of the dragon, then back at Giada. "Odd place for a human to dwell."

Giada chuckled. "I'm not exactly the average human, I guess you could say," she said. She leaned casually against the stone wall of the chamber, feeling slightly dizzy but not wanting to let on about it to a guest in her home. Especially a stranger who she'd pulled from the ocean only a few hours before. "I don't think I caught your name. I'm Giada."

The mouse gave the statement some serious thought, unsure of whether or not she wanted to give out her name to this human. "Ankh," was the simple reply. The woman had just saved her, apparently, so she would at least give her name.

Giada smiled and nodded in acknowledgement. "You must be hungry after however long you were floating with the tides. Is there anything you would like to eat? Or drink? Salt water doesn't do much to quench one's thirst after all," she said genially.

"Berries or fruits, if you have any," she said, reaching down to her flask. She pulled it out of the pouch and opened it to take a sip. "Water will be fine. If you have none, then I shall continue to drink this."

Giada nodded again and signaled to the servant from earlier. The man had been standing just outside the chamber and heard Ankh's request. He left and returned shortly with a bowl of fruits and a skin of water.

"My thanks," said Ankh before she sat on the floor of the cave and ate her fill and drank the water. After she was finished, she stood and stretched, feeling slightly fatigued even though she had been unconscious for however long. "I do not know how to thank you . . . Giada. I carry very little, as you can see."

Giada could see that Ankh was tired, and she shook her head at the woman's statement. "If you wish to thank me, then stay and rest for a while. I can see that you're tired, and for all that you've been unconscious for a few hours, that does not always equate sleep since your body was working the entire time to help you recover."

Ankh stared at Giada for a few minutes in utter indecision. "Should I stay? She doesn't seem to have any pre-judgments about my form like the other humans . . . but does that mean she's trustworthy? She rescued me, but is it with ulterior motives? No, best to move on and recover alone." The mouse woman shook her head slightly before responding. "No, thank you. I have a matter of some urgency to attend to. I do need a way off this . . . island, didn't you say it was?"

Giada held herself back from letting out a disappointed sigh. She wasn't disappointed really; nor was she relieved. She would have liked for the mouse woman to stay and let herself recover a little longer, but it appeared she wished to do so on her own. "Yes, this is an island. A rather large one. You'll have to go to the city and buy passage on a ship at their port. It's about an hour's walk to the north."

Ankh scoffed a little at the comment about time. "Maybe for a human . . ." she then thought ill of her statement. "Sorry, my body doesn't exactly lend itself to the hospitality of most humans. Is it the only city to the north?"

Giada nodded. "Perhaps. And perhaps we shall meet again in a different set of circumstances. Ah, wait! Allow me to send with you some food so you at least have some nourishment on your travels," she said, signaling again to the servant.

The mouse stopped in mid-step and spun on her heel to face the human. "That really is unnecessary, but I will not refuse the aid." She waited until the manservant had brought her a pouch full of berries and other fruits, and nodded once more. "It is much appreciated. Safe travels." She deftly turned around and made her way out the mouth of the cave. Once she had exited, she walked for about five minutes before getting down on all fours and scurrying north in the direction of the city Giada had told her about.