Page 63 of Dragon Cursed
"You are sulking."
She was smiling.The small private smile of a woman watching the very large and very brooding man she loved be folded into her grandmother's tiny green car like a clean shirt into a drawer that was just slightly too small.
He couldn’t, despite himself, find it in him to be angry about it.
He hadn’t been smiled at like that in three centuries.
He could endure the indignity of Margery.
"Seatbelt," she said, her tone full of amusement.
He cocked a brow.
"The strap.Reach up by your shoulder.Pull it across.Click it into the buckle by your hip."
He did.The strap drew tight across his chest.He looked down at it.He understood, at once, the principle.He understood, at once, why the strap existed.
He looked at Poppy with what he hoped was an even expression.
"This does not inspire confidence."
"The seatbelt?"
"The seatbelt and what it implies.Why does the carrequirethat we be strapped in?"
"In case of accidents."
"What sort of accidents?"
"Collisions."
"With?"
"Other cars, mostly."
"How many?"
"Alsander."Her hand came to rest on his knee."We are about to drive two hundred miles to Dublin.There are going to be a great many other cars.Most of them will be bigger than this one.Some of them will bemuchbigger than this one.We will share roads with them at speeds I think it would be unkind to tell you about right now."
"How large can the other cars be."
"Some of them are lorries."
"What is a lorry?"
"They have big engines and pull trailers, containers full of— You know what, my love?Let's find out together."
She turned the key.
Margery coughed once, like an old woman waking, and settled into a small steady purr.Poppy patted the dashboard.The headlights came on.
Alsander gripped the strap across his chest with both hands and didn’t breathe out for the first half-mile.
By the time they reached the motorway he had reluctantly accepted he wasn’t, immediately, going to die.
He was, however, gripping the strap again.
"Poppy."
