Uneasiness permeated the atmosphere of dinner, broken only by the sound of forks and spoons scraping plates and Opal's lively (but slightly nervous) talk. Lady Turquoise kept on clearing her throat, and Opal kept on glancing covertly at the wandering knight in between sentences. Carnelian was silent, only interrupting the dinner with a snort of ill-disguised amusement and a few (it sounded to Onyx) sardonic notes whenever Opal glanced at Onyx. Opal would then shake his lovely head back and forth several times, his face wearing an expression of fierce concentration, and then he would blush.

And Lord Jade stared. Lord Jade stared at Opal and Onyx, but most particularly at Onyx. He was a very distracting starer, in fact. It made Onyx wonder if there was something he had done wrong. He remembered the first thoughts he'd had on seeing Opal, and his long pointed ears reddened a bit. This was the man's son, after all. And just what had the lord meant by "Oh no, it's male"? In Onyx's experience (and he had done quite a few rescues--for a fee and a meal of course), this was not how one greeted the supposed savior of one's only son.

Onyx was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable under the constant scrutiny of Opal's father. His appetite was affected as well, which only proved how uncomfortable he really was. Something untoward was going on. Resolutely Onyx dug into his meal--roast lamb and a sweetish yellow rice, with melted cheese. It was delicious, and he was not about to let his suspicions get in the way of his dinner.

After dinner, Opal's father insisted that he spend the night. This was an even bigger puzzle to Onyx. He just wanted to take his reward and go. Something about the way the whole family, even the annoying little dragon, was behaving around him him made even the normally stoic warrior very uneasy.

And then Opal asked his father about the reward. Courteously, Lord Jade had a servant show Onyx to his quarters while Opal's father gently took his son into an adjacent room. (Actually, he seemed to be dragging the boy a bit.) All the while Onyx stood in the doorway, watching them, feeling frankly bewildered.

"I'm his WHAT??!!!! You mean the sword? Now!? To HIM?" Opal's voice rang out into the corridor, followed by the sound of notes descending up and down. Onyx could have sworn the dragon was laughing. The conversation subsided into whispers, and then he heard the startling sound of Opal's laugh. It sounded bitter for some reason.

He shook his head. That really was a lovely sound, tinged with sarcasm as it was. It seemed to be rather too lovely for a boy, but in fact it fit Opal perfectly. There were far too many things about the boy that were perfect...

Onyx was unbuckling his armor when they finally reappeared. The dragon was tittering madly, a cadence of demented notes, and Opal was desperately trying to make her shut up. The knight glared at the boy Sidhe, not relishing the fact that he was left out. "We've decided upon your reward," the Lord Jade said stiffly.

The boy looked straight up at the troll, his eyes glittering. "You get the Dragonsword, three purses of silver, one of gold, and er--" Opal flushed crimson. "Er, and me."

Onyx had been waiting patiently for him to finish, and he choked. "What? You mean, you--I...er...Gods," he trailed off weakly, "I'm engaged to a boy..." The rest of his statement blurred into incoherence as the floor rose up and hit him with a thud.

~

Opal jumped nimbly out of the way and sighed. "Maybe we should have waited for tomorrow. I think we shocked him."

Carnelian went into a wild cacophony of dragon laughter. You think??

"I don't blame him." Lord Jade shook his head. "The bride of the Dragonsword is a male." He stared unflinchingly down at the unconscious Onyx. "Unbelievable." He wasn't too happy about his son being married off to somebody else's son. It was just as well, he supposed, that the knight seemed courteous enough, even though he was silent during most of the meal. And seemed to have been... twitching...?

"Hmm." Opal knelt with all the grace of a daughter--er, son--the grace of the heir of the Dragon Clan, next to the knocked-out knight. He was really quite handsome. The long silky hair had since dried, and spilled down his broad back. His dark lashes brushed pale cheeks strangely unaffected by years of sun and harsh weather, and generously bordered the midnight-blue eyes, now shut in unconsciousness. He was rather tall, but that was to be expected, seeing as he was one of the famed troll warriors. The fact was made evident by the small dark horns curling out of his hair. Opal found himself, to his astonishment, sighing.

I do believe you have a crush.Carnelian's lovely soprano voice filled his head, teasing, as she had been doing insistently ever since dinner. The sound came out to his physical ears as a fluting trill, perhaps a little malicious.

Opal laughed, to cover up his embarrassment. "What are you talking about? I don't even know him that well!"

And when did that stop anybody?

"Carnelian!"

~

When Onyx opened his eyes, he was leaning against the headboard with his bride holding something strange-smelling to his nose. He sneezed and shook his head violently.

"I'm sorry," murmured Opal. "I said that rather too abruptly, didn't I?"

"Not really," said Onyx sourly, brushing stray locks out of his eyes. Shaking his head rather made it spin.

"To think," sighed Opal, "of all the trouble they took in etiquette class, making me try all kinds of ways to say the same thing, and I have to go and choose the worst thing to say."

The boy looked thoroughly dejected, looking down at the bottle of crushed rhodesia he was twisting in his elegant fingers. His eyes were the color of his namesake, pale blue with shimmery rainbow sparkles in their depths. It was quite the most extraordinary color Onyx had ever seen. The sparkle dimmed a little, turning slightly greener with mournfulness.

A small treacherous feeling rose in Onyx's throat. He forced it down with a stern: This is a boy, you idiot! A young, tender, virgin boy! Unspoiled and beautiful and--

Instead of receding, the feeling seemed to rise a little bit more, almost rebelliously. Onyx began to feel no end of a moron.

"Er, I'm sure it wasn't your fault," he assured the boy. "But I wouldn't mind being told, um...whose fault is it, anyway?"

Opal gave his lovely laugh, echoed a bit mockingly by his sarcastic little pet, and began to tell Onyx the story of the bride of the Dragonsword and her (his) dowry.

As it turned out, Opal was a DragonCaller, the last of one of the most illustrious line of magic-wielders in the land. DragonCallers were not mages, callers of magic. Rather, they were creatures of magic, much like the dragons themselves.

The last DragonCaller, the one before Opal, had lived a very long time ago. He was a sluagh, a very sad, ancient creature who knew the darkest secrets of past, present and future. And it was he who had given the Sidhe Trevelyan the Dragonsword, with its two purple stones and one empty socket where a third was to rest. It was he who had told them to keep it in trust for its wielder, and who gave them the task of raising the DragonCaller after him. The destined bride of he who would claim the Dragonsword, and restore its missing stone.

"And then I came." Opal's laugh was infectious, and this time Onyx could see the joke. "They were so confused. They didn't know whether to bring me up as a girl or a boy. So they did both."

"What?!"

Opal waved the bottle. "I can handle bow, spear, and the traditional two swords of Trevelyan. I can hunt, fight and fend for myself. But I've also been taught the healing arts and herb-lore that my mother would have taught me if I'd been a girl, and I can even cook!"

"You cook," said Onyx very flatly. "The heir to the lord of the Sidhe Trevelyan can cook. What do you need to cook for?"

"Er..." Opal looked sheepish. "That's the second part of the prophecy, actually. The destined wielder of the Sword--that's you--must go on a quest to seek the last dragonstone, accompanied by his bride--that's, er, me."

"Gods, demons and lower deities," said Onyx with considerable exasperation. "I ran away from home at thirteen to avoid being engaged to my father's oath-brother's daughter, and now I find myself engaged to a total stranger's son."

"I don't feel all that enthusiastic about the idea, myself..." confessed Opal in a very small voice.

The dragon arched her neck, bared her teeth at Onyx, and hissed, her eyes turning orange. With startlement Onyx realized that he had made no effort at all to find out what Opal had thought of the whole affair. The obviously sensitive boy had apparently been trained since childhood to obey promptly, question seldom and voice as little as possible of his own feelings or opinions. And those feelings were now clearly very hurt.

"I...I'm sorry," murmured Onyx as contritely as he knew how. "I wasn't thinking of you at all. You've never had any choice in the matter, have you?"

Opal shook his silver-blue head, his shimmering eyes misty with held-back tears. "Ever since I was born. Even being born male didn't stop my family from forcing my into my...my destiny," he spat the word. "You don't know how embarrassing it's been. I had to train in weapons alone because I couldn't stand all the other boys snickering at me and calling me 'Princess'. And I had to sit still and bear the stares of all the girls in the etiquette and protocol classes. I've been raised as son and daughter of the clan. The worst of both worlds, and the best of neither..."

"You did seem to get something out of it, though," Onyx tried to console the boy. "You're not giggly, or icy-chaste-cold, or fainthearted like the girls, and you're not boastful or pig-headed like the other boys. In the meantime, you got all the strength and skill of a boy and the grace..." he almost said "and beauty", but he considered that a little embarrassing. "...that the Sidhe ladies are so famous for."

Opal smiled a very small smile, his cheeks coloring faintly. Here was another interesting and not unpleasant result of his upbringing: the boy blushed rather easily. Onyx found it endearing. And then immediately gave himself a mental slap for being a fool.

"Besides," he said with a shrug. "I've always held that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

The boy laughed his lovely silvery laugh. "That's true. Please, get some sleep. You deserve it after all you've done today. The very least we could offer you is a good bed."

At that Carnelian let out a staccato burst that sounded very like a snicker. When she did both Onyx and Opal realized the double meaning to the young lord's innocent statement.

"Carnelian!" hissed Opal, going almost as red as his dragon. She chortled and took to the air, trilling an artless tune. The boy bowed himself out, still red-faced. Onyx nodded with dignity, very much aware of the heat in his own cheeks.

He really had to find a way to get back at that insinuating creature, mused the knight as he got ready for bed.

END CHAPTER 2