Except Cacopheny wasn't sure he wanted to sit in a library and read a bunch of boring old texts for dragons who not only would use them against his people-- who he didn't know deserved it; Rao did, maybe, but what about the others?-- but who didn't like him, to begin with. Who had not often treated him well. He didn't give them an answer then, he just turned and left, to the protests of Oralia and Comance both, silently promising Sentio he would be at home when he got back.

He had to think.

And he had to talk to Akija.

Finding Akija to talk to her was remarkably easy. She was, he noted as he wandered down the road, through the Watcher settlements towards their house, sprawled out on her back on the grass. Given it was springtime, and past the last of the spring rains, there was certainly nothing stopping her.

She had her hand up in front of her, playing with a bit of magic-- his own, in fact, he saw with a smile, waving little black streamers against the sky to shade her face. He could hear the magic-bits making happy little noises to match her own contentedness. He'd been surprised when he finally realized that some of the "voices" he heard jumping out at him actually had a cause-- he, and the dragons, literally left excess magic lying around, as if it just leaked out of them like blood-- and weren't just hallucinations. He expected some of them still were, but... perhaps there were less of them than he'd assumed. As if maybe he wasn't as "broken" as he thought.

Don't let her catch you saying that, Almadir snorted.

Akija didn't like the idea that he was "broken", that there was something wrong with the way he was, as if she actually thought he was perfectly fine, perfectly normal-- for himself-- the way he was. That, he thought, was better than anything else at all, even the sex.

Her shadow, magic-touched again, was murmuring contentedly, chuckling to itself. My hero, it laughed lightly, remembering the first time she'd used his shadow-magic. He remembered, too, and was privately just glad that he hadn't broken his nose right then. It was long enough without having to be crooked, too.

Your hero, huh? he told her before she could have actually heard her voice. He couldn't help but smile at her, weight on his mind or no. What a strange hero you have, then.

He saw her pop up, supported by her little wings, and look in his direction. He even fancied he caught the sound of her laugh out loud as well as in her shadow. But I'd best not forget it, she chortled back at him, sliding back down again once she'd marked where he was.

That's right, Tiger agreed smugly. Best not.

By the time he'd reached her, she had fire woven in with the darkness of shadows, making the magic flicker and complain in protest to the brightness. It did make an attractive weave, though, the orange against the black, outlining her hand rather than just blending with it the way the shadows did.

Who wants a cookie-cutter knight in shining armor, anyway?

The mental image of himself buried under a suit of metal made him snort in amusement. "I am klad not you," he told her, dropping to sit beside her. "I ton't ssink I could manazge ssat."

She smiled up at him, then smirked at her hand, drawing the magic into new shapes-- separate ones, to the shadows' quite vocal relief-- and then holding the new shadowy blade aloft in a hand wrapped in fire. "Well, then," she said, "everyone'll just have t'call me Champion of Akija Watcher of Sanctuary, and I'll wear the armor, and Chario can be my horse." Cacopheny barked a laugh at the idea of Chario as a horse-- an orange horse, no less. "Or maybe I'll borrow Sentio," she mused playfully, looking sideways at him. "He'd match shining armor better." She winked.

"I ssink Chario vood have more fun," Cacopheny chuckled, idly brushing his fingers through her short hair, down by his knee. She made a contented noise in her throat, making him smile, and pulled the magic back inside her so that her glove and sword leaked away into nothing.

"He all settled okay at the library?" she asked idly, pulling a copper ring he hadn't noticed off her finger.

"He'll love it ssere," Cacopheny admitted. "I do not underssssstant it, but he vill." Which brought his mind right back to why he'd come home so soon. He frowned, eyes on her hair and his twining fingers through it. "To not understant at all," he muttered, mostly to himself.

"What, all the books and stuff?" She sounded absent, her shadow musing about how to enchant the ring.

For a moment he didn't follow her, his own train of thought diverged and muddled from hers now, and he stared in confusion.

Sentio, Tek reminded him.

"Oh. Vell, yes. I ton't really understant sse interest in books. Or ssssstuffy, stuck up ribrarians."

Among which is now the whelp, Flash pointed out wickedly, and Cacopheny frowned more.

"Sentchio had better not ket rike ssat."

"I think the chance of that's about as likely as Flash there turning polite and demure," Akija chuckled.

As in, about zero, Flash agreed amiably, taking the tease in stride.

"We already have Kenjista fer our local dose of bad attitude," Akija finished.

"I ss'pose you're right," Cacopheny told her, smiling a bit again. It still amazed him a little how well she and the shadows got along, especially lately. "He defended me ven ssey found me."

"Found you?" She rolled over to face him, propped up on an elbow. "The librarians? What did they do?" I'll give 'em what-for if they were rotten to you! her shadow announced, and he grinned, though he didn't answer it, since he expected she hadn't really meant to think that, if she'd realized she had, at all.

"Offered me a jzob," he answered what she'd said aloud, a little sheepishly. "Vonce ssey got over being ssstartl't, anyvay."

"A... job," she repeated blankly.

"Yes," he affirmed, amused at her momentary confusion. "Ssat."

"All right," she said, tossing the ring away and flopping over onto her stomach, leaning against his leg. "Ya lost me. Instead of starting at the middle and going backwards, why doncha start with just before the librarians found you?"

Chuckling, playing his fingers over her back between her wings, he explained, "Ssey took Sentchio on a tour. Ended at sssssse demonic colleczhion. No von can read it, ssey say. Essept I could. It surpris'd me so mutch I fell out of my zhadow."

Aaaah, you're making it hard to think, Coffee, her shadow complained, but she didn't move or tell him to stop. All she said was, "You can read demon-writing but didn't know it?" Since he liked making her feel good, he didn't stop. She could think even if she was happy.

"I'd vorgotten," he admitted sheepishly. "It must have been a rongk time ago, ven I learn't. I had not seen a book ssat vas not. Vas not dragon-writing. Since, I ssink, I vas a tchilt." And he didn't honestly remember more than snatches of his childhood, to his growing regret. He thought there were times then when he was less troubled than later, but he didn't remember well enough to be sure if he actually remembered them or made them up.

Bah, not important. Stop meandering and get back to the point.

The point, yes. "So I vell out of my zhadow and frighten't sse tour-drrakon and transrator, but ssen see transrator told me zhe vanted me to translate sse books for her."

Akija tilted her head to look up at him better, one eye open and the other shut, whether because of his hand-- her back and her belly, he'd learned and took advantage of every time he could, were extremely sensitive-- or in thought. "Trying t'decide if ya want the job, then?" she asked.

"Yes," he nodded, pausing his hand down her back and frowning unhappily. "Even if sse books are more interestingk ssan I ssink ssey vill be, I know ssey vill vant to use ssem. Vat I learn. Akainst sse other demons."

Now both eyes came open, and she actually looked a little concerned. "Probably. That bothers you?"

"I don't know. I don't know anyssingk about ssem. Essept-- er, Rrrao. Are ssey all rike ssat? Are ssey really as evil as tragons ssink?"

She frowned thoughtfully. "I don't know much, myself, really... stories that go from daemon t'daemon, from the clans that travel more than we do. I know they're cannibals and kill each other when they're still pups. They live in packs and the females are the bosses, and they fight all the time for power over each other."

Like in that book, Araski commented.

"They keep my kind as slaves, and humans, too."

And mutts, apparently, Tiger added darkly.

Akija put her head back down, opening a wing over his knee in a big-fingered hug, since her arms were at an awkward angle to get at him at all. "There's probably some of them that aren't so bad," she continued, "just like some dragons are nasty pieces of work, but... I've never actually heard a story about nice demons."

It took a moment to come up with anything to say, and even then it was just, "Oh."

If demons are evil, Tek began worriedly.

What does that make you? Flash finished with a mocking growl.

"I can see what you're thinking," Akija said quietly, "and you need t'just stop." Her wing tightened on his knee, and he automatically stroked the elongated fingers.

"But-- rrr. I am von, sort of."

"So what?" she answered mildly. "That's only species. Doesn't say a thing about who you are. You're not about t'go eat somebody or make somebody be yer slave. Maybe people ought t'call you half-human, instead. Course," she added, "I think you're just Coffee. Who cares what yer parents were?"

If you look at it from that direction, you could say the same thing about full demons, Genner pointed out logically. That it shouldn't matter what their species is and they ought to be given the same chance to prove themselves decent creatures as anyone else.

And on the whole, they don't, do they? Araski snapped at him.

Look at what happened to us.

Is what happened to us normal?

Dunno.

"Maybe I zhould read ssose books," Cacopheny sighed, rubbing at his forehead unhappily while the shadows continued to bicker in the background, at least receding enough that Akija wouldn't have to hear them. "Ssey might tell me more."

Maybe it's both, Akija's shadow suggested. They've had lots of chances, but everybody's gotta be afraid of 'em for some reason.

Hrmph, Genner muttered, not sounding terribly pleased with the argument.

"Maybe," she said aloud. "I'd be curious t'see if they did have anything good t'say about demons. Maybe the ones that are nice enough just get... eaten up and beaten down by all the bad ones."

"Sse von part I read was about somevon killingk her sister," Cacopheny admitted. It didn't seem like a very good start. "Do you ssink ssey vill let me read ssem even if I don't translate for ssem yet?"

"Well, sure," Akija snorted. "It is a library, after all. If they didn't want people t'be able t'go see what's there, they'd have the books locked in a vault or something, right? If ya don't want t'be there as a job, doing whatever they tell ya, just go as a patron."

And watch them glare at us the whole time, Flash muttered.

I think it's a good idea, Tek spoke up. If just to find out more about where we came from.

Why? Tiger said negligently. It's not as if we're going back.

There was a long pause.

... Are we?

Well, no, but--

No buts. We're not going back. And if we're not going back, why bother learning?

Learning for learning's sake--

Is boring, Tiger interrupted Genner.

Not necessarily, Araski protested.

You saw those books, didn't you?

Of course I did. But don't tell me you aren't the least bit curious?

There was another pause, and Tiger finally growled. All right, so I am, a little.

Thought so, Araski said smugly.

That doesn't mean any of us particularly want to! Flash exclaimed.

Leave it up to the mutt, Tiger suggested. He's the one who's got the demon-blood and all that shit.

"Oh, and you all don't?" he rumbled at them in their native tongue. "You're all stuck here, same as me."

Shut it, mutt. What dyou say you wanna do, huh?

"I might as well at least look," he said reluctantly. "If I get bored with it, I can always come back home, right?"

"Rrrright," Akija chuckled at him, dropping into his language, too. He smiled at her again, listening to her shadow get as maudlin as it ever got, musing happily on being able to be included in his shadow-discussions, as if she were one of them, or as if they were all part of the family. "But if you do learrrrn anything interrrresting, you'll have to tell me all about it."

"Oh, of course," he blinked.

I expect, if we find anything interesting, you'll probably hear about it from a half dozen of us, Tek told her fondly.

She grinned back at him-- at them, because there was happiness there for all of the shadows, too. "Sounds good."

"As long as I don't die of boredom over those books," Cacopheny answered, brushing his hand through her hair again.

Bah. If anything, Genner'll enjoy 'em.

Not even Genner could like something that dry.

You'd be surprised.

Cacopheny shook his head at the shadows. "So," he said, switching back to Akija's more comfortable language. "Vat are you entchantingk today?"

She just snorted in amusement, rolling back over again and feeling around in her pile of trinkets. "Soon as I figure it out," she drawled, "I'll let you know."

He smiled more and echoed her own, "Sounds good."