Dragon Tamers
an excerpt

It wasn’t until dinnertime that Bane decided to go check on Cali. He left the table where the others were starting in on their food and slowly made his way up the back stairs. He had to stop halfway up as his aching muscles started screaming too loudly at him. That sword practice had killed him. He’d been spending far too much time behind his desk as of late.
He did make it all the way to the top, eventually, and started on the rather easier trek down the hall to Cali’s room. He knocked twice in quick succession when he reached her door and waited. No answer came, and he tried again.
“Cali?” he called through the door.
When there was still nothing, he tried the door handle. It was unlocked.
“I’m coming in,” he called before he pushed the door open.
The room was empty. Bane went inside and searched the whole thing just to be sure, but Cali was nowhere in sight. With a sigh, he left to go back downstairs.
“Was she there?” Rilen asked when he made it back to the table.
“No. She’s gone.” Bane sat down in the empty seat in-between Rilen and Beverly.
“She’s gone?” Gabby exclaimed around a mouthful of food. “How can she be gone? That’s just— that’s just— rude!”
Willie looked over at him. “Rude?”
“If we’re talking about manners, it should probably be mentioned that we were the ones who tricked her into coming down to the village in the first place,” Beverly added.
“Eh. Details.”
“And technically,” Mag offered, “the Commander was the one who made her come down here, not all of us. So while it may just be fair turnabout for him, it could still be considered rude to the rest of us.”
Beverly leaned forward on the table. “Yeah, except that we’re on his side. He’s our Commander, so his actions reflect on us just like ours reflect on him. He could have just as easily ordered one of us to bring her down here and we would have done it.”
“But the point is that he didn’t order one of you,” Rilen said. “Since it was an action that he did for himself, then it could be considered an official action by the Regional Director, but it could also be considered an action by Bane as a person. If it was Bane as a person who tricked her into coming down here, then that trickery cannot be applied to any of his subordinates.”
“From her point of view, though, the official chain of command and official verses unofficial actions don’t mean anything. She lumps us all together as ‘Dragon Slayer’, so anything that one of us does applies to all of us, simply because we know each other.”
“And besides that,” Willie put in, “she never asked to come down here, so we can’t blame her for what she does while she’s here. It would all be the Commander’s fault, wouldn’t it?”
“True.” Beverly nodded. “Since she was brought here against her will, she cannot fairly be held accountable for the actions she does to get herself back to where she originally intended to be. It was the Commander’s misdeed that caused her to commit the perceived offence to the rest of us. So, in reality, it’s the Commander who’s being rude to us.”
“Wait just a minute.” Bane held up a hand to stop the conversation. He turned to Beverly. “’Misdeed’? All I did was wait her out.”
“It could still be construed wrong.”
“’Construed’?” Gabby suddenly exclaimed from across the table. “’Misdeed’? ‘Perceived offence’? You have been spending way too much time with Maggie!”
“You still forced her to come down here against her will.”
“You know, some of us pride ourselves on having a large vocabulary.”
“Yeah, just ‘cause you can’t pronounce anything over three syllables.”
“I didn’t force her into anything.”
“Oh please, like you’re any smarter than I am.”
“I would place a bet that everyone at this table is smarter than you are.”
“Force does not necessarily mean physically. You made her feel like she had no choice but to come.”
“Really? How much?”
“No!” two voices shouted in unison.
“You don’t know that. She could have just changed her mind.”
“Don’t get him started. You may end up winning some money, but trust me, it is not worth it.”
“Yeah, but Cali wouldn’t change her mind that easily, especially since this involved her dragons.”
“She is far too persnickety about her dragons to ever—“
“’Persnickety’?! Come on, man!”
“There is no guarantee that I am not going to win! And I find it offensive that you would automatically assume so.”
“Oh, now who’s perceiving offences, huh?”
“You’re talking about two entirely different things.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“Cali caring about her dragons doesn’t have anything to do with her being forced or not forced down to the village.”
“My offence is far from perceived. It is very real!”
“Oh, give over! No one really cares that much.”
“What she feels about her dragons colors everything she does. You can’t separate it from anything.”
“Just ‘cause you don’t doesn’t mean no one does!”
“Especially since she was way pissed off at you at the time.”
“Anger I’ll accept as affecting her decision, but not her feelings about her dragons.”
“Oh, come on! That’s just mean!”
“What we could have done to her dragons would not have changed no matter where she had ended up.”
“The reality of the situation doesn’t matter. She thinks that she can protect her dragons better from up on the mountain.”
“Stop!” Gabby suddenly jumped to his feet, causing everyone at the table to turn and stare at him in shock. He took a moment to look at each one of them straight in the face, frowning the whole time. “I’m confused!”
Willie let out a stifled snort.