Pip sat up slowly.
Nami climbed off him and brushed grass from her knees, still smiling, not making any effort to hide it.
The dragon was right there. Twenty feet. Pip's eyes kept going back to it the way eyes go back to things they haven't fully accepted yet, running the confirmation loop of yes it's still there, yes it's still that size, yes those are scales and not some elaborate trick of moonlight and exhaustion.
"Okay," Pip said.
Nobody responded.
"Okay," he said again, slightly differently.
Noah had stood up and walked toward the dragon with the ease of someone approaching a horse he'd owned for years. The dragon lowered its head as he got close, not aggressively, just movement, and Noah put his hand on the side of its jaw and said something too quiet to carry.
Pip watched this.
"How long," he said.
"Since before the camp," Nami said, sitting back down in the grass with her legs crossed.
"Since before the camp," Pip repeated. He looked at her. "You knew."
