The dragon was now very close. This being enthralled her. It was not like this when she was forced to bond with Mreelith. She remembered staring into his muddy brown eyes and feeling absolutely nothing. She would have rejected him completely if she had had her choice. What a disaster that turned out to be. The dragon bared her teeth in anger, her eyes taking on a hint of red. Well, she had her choice now. True, it was almost too late, but this…woman…will just have to do. She shook her head slightly, regaining some of her senses. Time to find out if she would be able to have any control over this one. She cocked her head to one side, looked at the being standing at her feet, and projected.

The stranger thought she was going to die. The dragon was right in front of her when it bared it’s shining, dark silver teeth. She could have sworn it’s eyes turned a bit red, too. Then the worst pain she had ever imagined tore through her skull. She flung the shield down and grabbed her head as tears poured out of her eyes. Her name was ripped from her mind, whispers of it echoing for heartbeats afterwards.

As the pain started to ease, Rhinn stood up a bit. She was just about to remove her hands when the pain returned, far worse this time as entire parts of her life seemed to be removed from her mind, read, and then returned. The echoes increased. Rhinn was crying freely now, curled on the cavern floor, arms wrapped around her head. He mother’s name…her father’s…grandparents’...names of other relatives she didn’t consciously remember…her sibling’s names…ages…

The pain increased; she was actually reliving some of her worst moments: the fights in school…the knife fight on the street…that one horrid night in jail…he father’s death…her mother’s betrayal…her lover’s denial. It was like watching life in slow motion. Knowing what was going to happen, knowing what went wrong, willing it to change but unable to affect anything. Rhinn couldn’t take any more. With all the strength she had left she concentrated on one word

"STOP!!!"

The word echoed in the cavern as if she had spoken it out loud. The pain in her head was gone instantly, although a few whispers could still be heard in the back of her mind. Once she could think clearly again, she slowly picked herself up off the ground and looked accusingly at the dragon.

"What are you," Rhinn breathed, not expecting an answer.

Now it was the dragon writhing on the ground in pain as Rhinn got the answer to her innocent question. Rhinn could only equate the experience to watching a badly edited movie while hopped up on acid. There were swirls of color and sounds that she didn’t understand: odd geometric shapes and music that made no sense… bits of scenery and architecture that she had never seen before…a sense of overwhelming loss and sadness…hatred for a dull yellow dragon with dark eyes…and a name

"Lyra," Rhinn breathed. "You’re name is Lyra."

The dragon’s pain seemed to end; she sat up slowly, curling herself into the same position she had been in when Rhinn entered the cave.

"And you are Rhinn," Lyra projected carefully, the question clear. She heard the raw pain in the human’s low, gravelly voice and realized that Rhinn hurt just as much as she had. That was rare; usually only one of a bonding had the mind pain.

"Yes," Rhinn spoke aloud just to hear her own voice. It was odd having another’s thoughts in your head. Even when it, no she, Lyra, was not speaking, Rhinn could still feel a small presence in the back of her mind; a sort of greenish silver speck that she knew must be some part of the dragon.

Lyra noticed that Rhinn seemed to have processed the whole experience rather well. She did not seem upset with Lyra for causing her such pain, nor did she seem to have any lingering after-effects. Lyra’s bonding with Mreelith had left her ill for a week, while he suffered nothing at all. Lyra remembered the few times she had tried to speak with her self-appointed "caretakers" over the years…centuries? The men always howled in pain and got half of the information she told them wrong. This did not seem to have happened with Rhinn. Perhaps with humans you must be bonded in order to mindspeak correctly? How strange…

"What happened to me," Rhinn asked, breaking the dragon out of her reverie.

"We are mind-bonded," Lyra projected with a slight air of irritation. It should have been obvious; couldn’t the female sense Lyra in her mind even now? Lyra could definitely feel Rhinn; a spot of pure blue in the dark expanse of her brain, slowly pushing out the dot of yellow that still remained.

"Oookay…I’ve read a lot of science fiction, so I’m gonna take a guess that that would explain why I can feel a little green blob in my head with your name all over it. But it doesn’t explain why I felt like my head was going to explode and why I was treated to a special viewing of the worst parts of my life." Rhinn’s voice dropped even lower, her anger evident. To her, this beast looked way too smug.

Lyra was confused, and a bit intimidated, by the creature’s sudden anger. She took a slight step back, trying to distance herself from Rhinn’s bristling form.

Rhinn would have laughed out loud had she been in a better mood. The sight of the dragon backing away from her was comical. She relaxed a bit, reaching up to rub the back of her very stiff neck. That was when her fingers brushed against the necklace and stopped. She hadn’t been wearing a necklace when she left her apartment. She put her fingers under the chain and tried to hold it away from her neck to see what it looked like, but it was too tight. Failing that, she let the tips of her fingers trail over it.

"Uh-oh," Lyra thought, as she stopped her retreat. The human had discovered the collar and was touching it very carefully. How to explain this…

"WHAT THE HELL IS ON MY NECK," Rhinn was not amused any more.

"Umm, well…," the dragon let her projection fade. Rhinn was looking even more hostile now than before. Lyra flared out her wings and arched her neck in response. Now it was the human’s turn to take a step back.

"It’s nothing, really. It signifies that you are a Kaleran, a truebond," Lyra projected in a soothing tone.

"Great, okay, so now I have some new jewlry," Rhinn stated sarcastically, "but I notice that you are not wearing one."

In response, Lyra waved one clawed hand in front of her, leaving behind a rectangular shaped, blue swirling mass about six feet tall. The blue colors calmed down and solidified into a silvery mirror. Rhinn walked slowly towards it, heedless of her close proximity to the dragon.

The image in the mirror held her, transfixed. There she was, looking like she normally did, with one exception. Draped around her neck was the most beautiful choker she had ever seen. It hugged her neck so tightly that she could barely slip a finger under it, but the metal felt almost soft, not constricting in any way. It was rounded over, about two inches thick, and made of what must have been millions of tiny individual links all woven together to give the overall appearance of scales. It was a dragon that circled her neck. At the hollow of Rhinn’s throat, the animal was holding it’s tail in it’s forelegs with it’s head resting on the crossed hands. A bright emerald shone out of the one exposed eye. The rest of the piece was a brilliant silver color that shone against Rhinn’s tanned skin.

"It…It’s nice," Rhinn stuttered. She swallowed hard and continued. "But I still don’t understand why I’m wearing it and why you don’t have one." She looked expectantly at the dragon, craning her head to make eye contact.

Lyra looked down at the human, slightly uncomfortable with the decreased distance.

"It shows that you belong to me and are not available for any other bonding. It is a common practice," she projected.

"This piece was created for me by Arthiel, one of our finest craftsmen." Lyra crested her neck, proud of the origin of her bonding gift. "I am not wearing one because you have none to give. Now, we have wasted enough time. You humans are always so full of questions. It is time to leave."

Lyra waved her hand again, causing the shield that was on the cavern floor to float across the air towards Rhinn, who caught it reflexively.

"But where…" Rhinn had no time to finish her sentence as she felt herself grasped in two clawed hands, pulled close to the body of the dragon, and then enveloped in a flash of yellow light.

Next Part