Wolf Who Rules

The apple smacked the barn wall, blossoming into a flower of rotten sweetness unnervingly close to Tinker's head.

"What fucking part of that don't you understand?" Tinker shouted at her.

"You - are - too - trusting!" Stormsong flung apples to emphasize her words - one apple per word. They whizzed past Tinker so closely she felt their passage. "And - too-slow-at - putting - up - your-shields."

There was now a halo of spattered fruit outlining Tinker.

"I get the point! I get the point!" Tinker called up her shield. "See, shield! Happy?"

"Happy?" Stormsong snorted, picked an apple from the tree instead of the ground, and polished it against her black jeans until it gleamed with promise. "Here!" She tossed the apple in a lazy arc toward Tinker.

Tinker moved her hands to catch the apple and her shield vanished.

"You're - too- trusting!"

The first apple hit Tinker in the shoulder in a painful splatter. The second and third were intercepted mid-air by other apples so that they exploded in front of her, spraying her with apple bits.

"Stop it." Pony had another apple ready. Part of Tinker was impressed that he could knock apples out of the air - the other part wanted to know where the hell he was for the first volley. "She is the domi. She leads us."

"She's going to get herself killed!" Stormsong growled.

"What she says is true," Pony said. "The dragon can not stay here. The truck is the only vehicle that will carry it. She and Oilcan are the only ones that know how to drive it - and he will be focused on keeping the creature calm. The fewer people we involve in moving the beast, the less likely the oni will learn that we have it."

"How can you support this plan?"

"The domana's self-centered creativity is why we chose to obey them. We need their drive. Trust her, she will make it work."

"Or die trying." Stormsong muttered. "This is insanity."

"Is it? We have the scarecrow." Pony pointed at Tinker and then tapped his chest. "The lion. The tin man." He pointed at Oilcan's metal sculpture. "And the apple trees." He held up the apple in his hand. "And the apples being thrown at the scarecrow."

Stormsong's eyes went wide.

"There, see!" Tinker cried. "It's crazy with a purpose."

"And that is supposed to make me feel better?" Stormsong snarled. "What are you going to do with dragon now that you found him?"

Tinker held up her finger, indicating they were to wait, and pulled out her datapad. "Give me a few minutes. I've been keeping notes on the dreams. Off hand, I don't remember anything. Wait-how about this - Esme said 'he knows the paths, the twisted way, the garden path. You have to talk to him. He'll tell you the way.'"

"The way? To where."

"Obviously where I need to go."

***

It was like having a very large, hyper-active five year old in her workshop. The dragon flowed in and out of the various rooms of the trailer, carrying on a running commentary in its rumbling voice, as it examined everything with its massive but manipulative paws. After rescuing her scanner, their radio base, and antique CD player, Tinker realized what happened to Oilcan's answering machine and started to fear.

"Okay, okay, I think first thing in communicating would be - to - get a record of what it's saying." She snatched her camera from the dragon before he could dissemble it. She flipped out her tripod, snapped the camera to it, and caught Cloudwalker by the hand and dragged him to the camera. "Here, keep the dragon - the dragon's image - in this little window." Great, she was actually dealing with two groups of technology-challenged people. "And we'll build a dictionary of his words."

"I was trying to do that." Oilcan distracted the dragon from her computer systems with a flashlight. "But usually it's hard to tell where one word starts and another ends."

"…mmmenananannaaaaaaapoooookaaaammmammamamyyyyyyaaanananammmmoooo…" The dragon rumbled while clicking the flashlight on and off, and then dissembled it and sniffed at the batteries.

"Yeah, I can hear that." Tinker had microphones planted in the offices so she could trigger her computers without a headset. "Sparks, are you active?"

"Yes, boss." Her office AI answered.

"Filter audio pick up into separate voice prints and put it up on the workshop screen."

"Okay, boss."

As she hoped Impatience's ramblings easily divided out. "Sparks, record this track." She tapped the bass rumbles of the dragon's voice. "Convert to phonetics and indicate all pauses and breaks."

Impatience stuffed the batteries back into the casing, screwed on the lid and tried the switch. When the flashlight didn't light, the dragon took it back apart and eyed the pieces carefully. Apparently it had spotted the "this way up" diagram stamped on the plastic as it eyed the batteries closely, repacked them into the casing and turned it on. This time it was rewarded with a beam of light. "Huuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuuhuu."

One word down.