"Did we break it?" A voice asked quietly.
"Hush, he's not dead. I just don't think humans are meant to be hurled against walls." Another's voice confidently asserted.
The first voice he'd heard enough to recognize said. "Hang on I think he's waking up. Tate, Tate? Can you hear me?" It was Bezhar.
Tate blinked a few times and was confused about what he saw. Why were the heads of all the dragons he'd just met floating in the sky?
He blinked again and his mind cleared a little, however, he paid for the clarity with a splitting headache. He realized that they were not floating in the air, but that he was on the ground and they were leaning over him. Their bodies were firmly attached to their heads and if he looked to the side he'd see their feet on the ground. He smiled and felt ridiculous that this was a concern for him at this moment.
He slowly sat up and winced as it made his head ring even more. He reached up and touched the back of his head. The hand came away with blood.
"Argh! What is that?" It was Koda who said this in a disgusted tone. Tate looked up at the white-haired dragon towering above him.
"I think that would be human blood." Bezhar said in a droll tone.
"You've never seen blood?" Tate couldn't help but ask automatically.
"Blood doesn't look like that." Onen quipped, also looking green.
Tate didn't have time to ask the most interesting question, which was what color was their blood. He had to get to the point. "What happened?" He asked he had a fuzzy memory of hurling through the air, but he couldn't remember the details.
"I threw you against the wall." Yokan boomed. Tate flinched, his voice was so loud.
Bezhar sighed. "Come on, we'd better have a healer look at that. You can't exactly fight us if your head is damaged."
Tate felt frustration rise up in him. He'd finally been cleared to do this and now look at him. At most, he'd been out here with them for an hour and he was already so injured that they had to stop. He needed to keep going, the only key to going home was to keep going.
He tried to open his mouth to protest when Bezhar cut him off. "Don't argue with me, the Elder will kill me if you die on my watch."
Tate was led away from the others against his will. It wasn't like he wanted to be there with a group of dragons who looked down on him and threw him against walls. It was just that being there in that square was the first step in his ticket back to his proper place in the world.
=====
A healer looked at him, cleaned the wound, gave him more tea, and then sent him off to bed. She told him that since his body had started to get used to processing the medicine in the tea his wound should heal enough overnight that he could resume training tomorrow.
This was a handy thing to know.
He felt like a weak child as he lay in his bed with a bandage wrapped around his forehead. The light was still brightly shining through the window but he'd been forced here by a well-meaning maid.
Even now he wasn't sure if she was a maid or a babysitter. She hadn't left after meticulously tucking him in and instead was sitting in a corner just staring out the window.
He soon dozed off, this proved to be more annoying than helpful because the maid woke him up every so often to make sure he was still alive. By the next morning, he felt more exhausted than he had in a long time. He'd gotten no proper sleep, but when the maid checked the bandage she said there was no sign that there had ever been an injury at all.
He was astounded and grateful for the fast recovery and wondered what was in that tea? If it was made out of something they also had on the other side of the veil, he could bring back some amazing technology.
He got up and the maid left the room. He dressed slowly in a new set of clothes that had been provided to him.
When he opened the door to leave the room he was greeted with the same guards who had been there since he arrived. He'd learned that his and Lou's rooms were guarded at all times but two shifts of two guards. This was the day shift.
One other person was there as well.
The dragon Koda leaned back against the wall opposite his door and looked like he was inspecting his nails. Tate was about to open his mouth to say something when talons shot out of Koda's fingers and the dragon looked up and made eye contact. He was grinning like a fool. When Tate made no reaction the male actually pouted.
"What's with that reaction? I wanted to scare you, you lost me a bet human."
Tate just sighed. "I've seen that all before so why would you having talons in human form scare me, and my name is Tate." He wasn't even about to ask what the "bet" was.
Koda didn't seem to even register that he said anything at all.
"Well, let's get going. You have to practice your hand-to-hand fighting again today. I must remind you that you did terribly yesterday." His tone was so gleeful that Tate didn't know what to do with that statement.
Koda was already striding away and since this place was like a maze Tate scurried to catch up.
"You know, you were surprisingly good with a talon. I'll admit that you were impressive."
Tate nodded even though Koda didn't see because Tate was behind him.
"Do humans only know how to use a talon or can you fight other ways."
"I can fight the same ways you can, it's just that we have a raw power disparity."
"Hum, I don't know about that. A real warrior wouldn't let something like that stop him. I mean look at Onen, he's the weakest of us physically, but he can still thrash dragons much bigger than him. Why? Because he refuses to give up. If you'd been fighting him first yesterday you would have been in trouble because he would have drilled you into the ground even if it killed him."
Tate wasn't sure if he was supposed to be responding to this information dump. He decided not to say anything.
"So how old are you human? Ever since you came interest in your species has been rekindled, and I heard your human body ages."
"I'm twenty-six."
Koda stopped so suddenly that Tate ran into the back of him.
Koda spun and looked down at him, fascinated.
"You're just a baby! Wow, I just can't even wrap my head around this. You're still just a child!"
Tate crossed his arms affronted. "I'm not a child in the human realm I'm a fully grown adult."
Koda was ignoring him again. He'd started stalking around Tate looking him up and down. "So your body really changes each year until you die?"
"Yes." Tate bit out.
"That's crazy." Koda breathed. He actually reached out and pinched Tate's cheek. "Hum, it feels the same."
Tate pulled back and glared at him. Koda held up two hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, I won't pinch you again." He stepped closer again closing the gap. "What does an old human look like?" He wondered aloud.
"Don't you have any dragons whose bodies took old forms when they ascended?"
Koda rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I don't know, you'd have to look at different dragons and tell us. The appearance of our human forms, as I'm sure you know by now, doesn't have anything to do with our age."
"How old are you then?"
"I'm one hundred and six."
Tate felt floored. He knew that it was pointless to rely on their appearance but he was still taken aback.
"What about the twins?" He said after a moment. They were the pair he was most curious about since they appeared so young to him.
"Ah, they're five years older than me. I'm the youngest in the royal guard actually." Koda confessed with a heavy dose of boyish shyness.
Tate was just amazed, there was no other word for it. The youngest member of the royal guard was one hundred and six. That one hundred and six-year-old was standing in front of him full of curiosity, a silly grin, and a cutesy bashful routine. What was happening?
"Huh." Was all Tate finally managed to say.
Koda gave him one last look of wonder then turned and began walking again.
He led them out of the palace and into the adjacent structure that he had been informed yesterday was the traditional home and training ground of the Royal Guard. This was where the large square was.
When they walked through the building and out into the square the seven other members of the royal guard were already there.
They looked at him as he approached. They still looked extremely annoyed. Everyone but Koda that is. Koda, who had been the most friendly yesterday as well, seemed to be in a great mood.
"Hey, you guys won't believe this! The human here is only twenty-six!"
Yokan turned pale and coughed violently. As soon as he could speak he roared. "You mean to tell me I threw a baby against a wall!"