Dragon Dream

by Elena Van Peborgh

  I froze for a moment when Bernardus mentioned Flora. I had barely been here for two days and had completely forgotten about her. She had made sure I had gotten here. I had left my parents behind for a while already; I had left them when Flora had taken me with her to The Capitals. I had left so many people behind and had forgotten about all of them: Vera, my parents, Flora. I missed them. I even missed Jon. And my chances of ever seeing any of them were very slim. I looked in the direction of Adam and Sil. They had previously been shape-shifters before becoming dragons. Had they also given up their family and friends to become dragons? Did they miss them?

  “Do you think Flora is in trouble?” I asked with a lump in my throat.

  “No, I don’t think so. The cucumbers will be mad when they find out what she has done but they’d never punish one of their own.”

  “I think it’ll be better if you don’t mention Flora anymore. You admit she’s a cucumber, and it’s not a good idea to mention them,” Revan said.

  “Oh, do you think you’re an expert on that topic? Do you maybe think I don’t know what’s going on with you?”

  Bernardus gave Revan with a stern look.

  “Not now,” Revan hissed.

  I rolled my eyes. The mountain druids also seemed to pick fights with each other now. It was like they didn’t have enough issues with the Capital druids already. I did wonder what this fight was about though. What did Bernardus know? But the fight had abruptly ended already. I wanted to ask Bernardus what it had been about, but I’d only be able to ask him later, when he was alone.

  “Sometimes I wonder why they hang out so much. I mean, they don’t seem to be friends, they quarrel too much with each other,” Sil murmured.

  She hadn’t said that loudly, but I had heard it because I was sitting right next to her.

  “They sometimes remind me of an old married couple,” Adam whispered to her.

  Apparently, he had also heard what she had said. He had made me laugh with his comment, but I tried to suppress my laughter when I saw the others staring at me in a weird way. I suddenly realised something. I cussed.

  “Are you having mood swings again?” Adam mocked me.

  “No, I just remembered something. I didn’t make any arrangements with Isaak. I don’t know where I need to go or where I need to wait,” I explained.

  “Did he tell you about the meeting place?” Lilith asked and I nodded. “Then there isn’t a problem, is there? Just go to the meeting place.”

  Oh, right. I had noticed myself the meeting place was the first place the messengers went to after they had eaten. “Have you finished eating, Lilith? I have. Do you want to come with me to the meeting place?”

  Lilith looked at me questioningly for a bit because I had only eaten half of what I had put on my plate. But I wasn’t hungry anymore. I wanted to pass that final test.

  “Give me your plate. You can clean up mine because it’s empty. It’s such a shame to throw away food,” Adam said.

  We switched our plates, and he immediately started to eat the rest of my food. Lilith and I passed by the buffet to clean up our trays and then went to the meeting place. Isaak and George arrived a bit later. George immediately took a bag and left. Lilith wished me good luck before she copied him. Isaak held a dark piece of fabric.

  “I’m going to blindfold you,” he informed me.

  I turned around so he could blindfold me. I pulled the fabric loosely over my nose and forehead so I definitely wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.

  “Turn around a couple of times.”

  I did as he asked.

  “Perfect. Extend your arms now.”

  I followed his instructions again and turned around while stretching my arms right in front of me. He took both of my hands.

  “I’ll guide you. Remember the way we’ll take,” he said.

  I couldn’t see what halls we turned into, so I counted my steps. Five steps before we turned left. Ten steps before we turned right. That way I kept track of the route we followed. I vaguely heard the water streaming when we passed by the central place. I also vaguely noticed it was lighter when we walked through a hall with torches. He stopped abruptly, and I almost bumped into him. He released my hands, and I quickly turned around so he could remove the blindfold. It was still dark when he removed it; I still couldn’t see anything.

  “You have two choices. You can follow the same route back to the meeting place in the opposite order. Or you can go straight back to the meeting place and take the same way we’ve followed while being blindfolded.”

  “I can do both. What is the most difficult option? I’ll take that option,” I answered.

  “I think it’s more difficult to follow the same route back to the meeting place in the opposite order. You’ll need to do everything differently then.”

  “Okay, we’ll do that then,” I said and left.

  It wasn’t that hard, I just needed to start at the end. I needed to count my steps backwards and left also became right but those were the only things I needed to consider. I had to suppress the urge to walk straight in the direction of the central place when I heard the water vaguely. The sound of the streaming water would lead me to the central place, but Isaak hadn’t turned directly into this hallway after we had passed it.

  A bit later, I ended up in a hall with torches hanging on the walls, so I knew I was still following the correct route. Eventually, I reached the central place. I only had to go back to the meeting place now. Isaak hadn’t gone straight from the meeting place to the central place, so I had to follow the same detour he had taken earlier.

  “Very good. You didn’t make a single mistake,” Isaak said when we arrived at the meeting place.

  “I’ve passed the three tests. So, can I be a messenger tomorrow?”

  He shook his head, and I was confused for a moment. I had passed so that meant I could be a messenger, didn’t it? He grabbed a bag and handed it over to me.

  “From now on, you’ll be a messenger,” he said.

  Eighteen

  Did Isaak mean that? Was he being serious? I was a messenger! I had expected I’d only be allowed to start tomorrow. I smiled gratefully at him, hung the bag over my shoulder and left. I quickly checked the contents of the bag while I was on the way. There were five notebooks and three pens from which I could easily tear out the pages in the bag. I almost bumped into Bernardus.

  “I was just looking for you. Do you have some time?”

  He didn’t wait for my response; he was immediately gone again. I followed him in a hurry. He only stopped when he found Revan. I wondered what the two druids were up to now.

  “We want to talk to you again, Tatiana,” Bernardus said.

  “Yes, we want to be sure you really want to become a dragon. You might say you’ve always wanted to become one, but we can’t know that for sure,” Revan added.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Oh, we don’t need to know anything. We just want you to understand this: once you become a dragon, you’ll never be able to undo that. We can turn you into a dragon with our magic forever, but you’ll have to pay a price,” Revan answered.

  “I know I won’t ever be able to see my family again. I will need to leave everyone who I have ever met in the communities behind. But I’ve already done that.”

  Revan shook his head. “I wasn’t talking about that, but that’s correct. I am glad you realise that. Didn’t Sil or Adam tell you they needed to sacrifice something?”

  Sil and Adam had been born as shape-shifters, just like I was. They actually never talked about their past.

  “Sil can’t feel anything physically anymore and Adam lost his sense of smell,” Bernardus told me.

  “If you use magic, you must pay a price,” Revan said.

  “Shut up about that. You’re being dramatic.”

  “But it’s not nothing! She must understand this. She must know.”

  Oh God no. They started fighting again. I had thought for a while the
y could work together but now, they were bickering again.

  “You’re just like a cucumber,” Bernardus said to Revan.

  “Stop. Don’t you fight enough with the other druids already, the ones you call cucumbers? I wonder what your problem is. Why can’t you just work together?” I intervened before it got any worse.

  They looked at each other angrily for a bit longer but then they apologised to each other.

  “Okay, good. I understand I will have to make a sacrifice. I probably won’t be able to feel or smell anything. I can live with that.”

  “You could also become blind or deaf or paralysed, but that probability isn’t very high. It’s only high when you choose to become a fire or giant dragon. They are very rare so it will take more magic to turn you into those kinds of dragons. More magic means you’ll need to make a larger sacrifice.”

  “Did you get to know the different kinds of dragons already?” Bernardus asked.

  I was confused for a moment. I already knew the different species. Suddenly, I recalled the first time I had met Bernardus. I had pretended like I didn’t know that much about them.

  “Oh yeah, I’ve learned a lot about the dragons already.”

  “That’s good. Like I’ve said before, your best option is to become an earth dragon, but you still have the possibility to choose to become a water or air dragon.”

  “What were Sil and Adam before they became air dragons?” I asked.

  The two druids briefly looked at each other but eventually Revan answered. “Sil was a bird. I think she was a giant eagle. Adam was a bear.”

  That was interesting. They had probably advised Adam to become an earth dragon and his second option would probably have been to become a water dragon because bears were naturally good swimmers. But he had still become an air dragon.

  “Do you know the history of the dragons? Do you know why the dragons are different from the shape-shifters?” Bernardus interrupted my thoughts.

  “No, I only know the dragons were stronger during the Middle Ages. The humans have stories about knights who go on quests to slay dragons. If that knight succeeded in killing the dragon and could show the head of the dragon as proof, they’d obtain a special status. The knights always killed the dragons in those stories, but I know that’s not the case because humans were afraid of the dragons. They made those stories more heroic because they were weaker than the dragons and mostly lost.”

  “It’s correct the dragons were stronger during the Middle Ages, in a way,” Bernardus told me. “The humans mostly lost, but they were obsessed with the dragons. They just wanted to exterminate the dragon race. They hunted them intensively. Eventually, the number of dragons started to drop drastically, and they almost became extinct.”

  “You must know the dragons only had their dragon shape back then; they didn’t have a human form yet,” Revan continued. “But the first shape-shifters also appeared during the Middle Ages. They were only able to transform into a wolf then but could transform anytime, contrary to what the stories said. The stories about werewolves are based on them, but a lot of what it is said in those stories is false.”

  I knew some stories about werewolves. They said someone became a werewolf when they were bitten by one, but that wasn’t true. Wolves were born; the gene was passed on from parent to child. Most of those stories also said wolves were only able to transform during the full moon, and that they couldn’t stop that process. At first, that had been the case, but wolves could transform anytime now, they didn’t necessarily need to transform during a full moon anymore. Another myth was that wolves couldn’t stand silver.

  “Didn’t the lynxes and lower shape-shifters exist at that point in time yet?” I asked.

  “No, the lynxes only came into existence later and the lower shape-shifter came after them, so only wolves existed during the middle ages. The druids have studied them and discovered the wolves have a genetic mutation. The druids used their magic on the dragons then to give them the same kind of mutation the wolves had; that’s how the dragons obtained their human form,” Bernardus responded.

  “Wait a minute. If I understand all of this, your ancestors used magic to give the dragons a human form?”

  The two druids nodded. The dragons were being threatened by the humans, so the druids had protected them by hiding them in plain sight. The druids had saved the dragons in this way.

  “What have the dragons sacrificed then?” I asked.

  “Well, the dragons had a lot of power during the middle ages. An earth dragon could cause enormous earthquakes. An air dragon could create hurricanes and tornadoes and they were also able to guide them. Nowadays, the dragons can still manipulate their element a tiny amount; an earth dragon can still manipulate the earth and they can still cause faint earthquakes, but they have given up a huge part of their power,” Bernardus replied.

  I found it cool the dragons could control and steer the elements of nature. I tried to imagine how it would have been during the Middle Ages, when the dragons didn’t have a human form yet and still had their full might. I understood now why humans had been so terrified of the dragons. Humans were still a bit scared of them, but much less so now. They captured a lot of dragons now; the hunters could catch them too easily.

  “We will let you think about this a bit longer. You can still return to the communities and remain a shape-shifter. You just need to say so if you want to go back. But if you do decide to continue with this, you should think about what kind of dragon you want to be,” Revan proposed.

  “That’s okay. But I want to ask something else. Why do you two fight so much? You’re just like a bunch of children.”

  I knew it was risky to ask that question, but my gut told me they wouldn’t just fight like that without reason. There was more to it than just a few small disagreements.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s nothing. Everyone fights from time to time. Don’t worry about it,” Bernardus reacted.

  I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. He had waved the topic away way too nonchalantly. I directed my attention to him.

  “Bernardus, you can tell me. You can trust me. Flora is like my aunt. You know she grew up with my mother, right? She also treats me like I’m her niece,” I insisted.

  The two druids involuntarily collapsed a bit and quickly looked at each other. Yes! I had gotten a reaction from them. I suddenly realised something. They had only reacted after I had mentioned Flora and told them she was kind of a member of my family. Revan had reacted heavily in the mess hall when Bernardus and I had talked about her.

  “You’re both in love with Flora, aren’t you?” I whispered.

  That actually made sense somehow. She was born as the daughter of two Capital druids but hadn’t been raised in The Capitals. She had been raised differently, with different ideals and values. She wasn’t as stubborn as most Capital druids were. She did have the appearance of a Capital druid though. The two kinds of druids had a lot of differences in their appearances: Capital druids were the image of perfection and resembled the description of angels while the mountain druids had a very scruffy appearance. I waited until the two mountain druids responded.

  “It doesn’t matter. Neither of us will ever be able to have a relationship with her. She is still a cucumber and will always be one, it doesn’t matter if we like it or not. She will always need to stay in The Capitals, and we will always have to remain in the mountains. There’s too much tension. We don’t trust them, and they don’t trust us either,” Bernardus reacted finally.

  At that moment, I felt sorry for them. I felt compassionate and sad. I knew what it was like to have a dream and to have the knowledge it would never become a reality. I knew what it felt like to long for something so badly and have the knowledge you wouldn’t be able to get it at all.

  “I’m sorry. If I could do something, I would,” I said.

  I meant what I had said. If I could help, I would. I would want to make sure they both would have a chance to be with Flora. But I was just an
ordinary girl and barely fourteen years old. I wouldn’t be able to solve something which had been going on for years. This was a situation the druids had always fought over. What would I be able to change about it? I was just a lower shape-shifter. They would laugh at me if I tried to intervene.

  I got overwhelmed by questions when I sat at the table during dinner. My friends wanted to know if I had passed the final test.

  “Of course, I’ve passed. Isaak let me start immediately,” I responded.

  “I haven’t seen you around though,” Lilith reacted.

  I nodded towards Bernardus and Revan. “Those two druids have given me a history lesson.”

  I looked at Adam and Sil to see if I got a reaction from them, but they didn’t react. I frowned. Hadn’t the druids warned them about the consequences? Hadn’t they told them they would have to pay a price? I knew what they had given up, but I wondered if the others knew.

  I went straight to my sleeping cave after I had cleaned up my tray. I didn’t feel like going outside to watch the others. I grabbed two blankets and a pillow and spread the blankets on the ground.

  “Do you know it’s a special day tomorrow?” Lilith asked when I was sitting down.

  “No. How so? Why is it a special day?”

  “Tomorrow, we’ll have the chance to shower. We’ll get a half day off work then. We are only allowed to take a shower twice a week, and we get clean clothes then as well.”

  A lot had happened in the meantime, so I hadn’t wondered when the dragons would shower and change into other clothes.

  “Isn’t it a little bit weird you get a half day off for that?” I asked.

  “No, everyone needs to use the showers. If you don’t shower tomorrow, you must wait until the end of the week. Some people will want to shower immediately after lunch time while others will wait until the evening falls. It will always be busy. Personally, I think it’s a little bit less busy during the evening.”

  I decided to follow Lilith’s advice and wait until tomorrow evening to shower. I was very curious to see what the shower cabin looked like. I wondered how the showers worked. Everything was so primitive here; I feared the dragons had a whole other definition of a shower than I had.