The Last of the Ageless

by Traci Loudin

  Nyr watched Saquey buzz toward the grasslands. “Your dumb insect only saw my actions, but I had to wait until the last second, when they least expected it. The Purebreeds took me by surprise, but yes, they were the perfect distraction. I didn’t know which side would win, but none of us would be standing here if I hadn’t told them the Purebreeds wanted the trinkets.”

  Dalan popped the biscuit into his mouth, knowing his body needed energy despite not being hungry. He closed his eyes and fought his gorge down. It would take a long time to get the horrors of the past few days out of his mind.

  The food made his mouth feel drier. His tongue moved in his mouth like a foreign object, barely wetting the biscuit.

  He opened his eyes. Nyr gave them a sideways look as she took a long swig from one of the canteens. She held it out toward them, waiting.

  It took all of Dalan’s willpower not to snatch it from her. Ti’rros’s tail tapped the ground beside her, her expression unreadable as ever. When neither of them reached for the canteen, Nyr cursed and sat down under a tree further away.

  “Am not sure what to say, Nyr.” Dalan let out a breath. “Doesn’t really matter. Once I’m rested, am going back to my tribe. It’s up to the elders to decide what happens to me now.”

  He let his head fall back against a nook in the tree where a branch separated from the trunk. Closing his eyes, he fell asleep.

  When he woke up, it was to the snapping of hungry flames. Saquey slept on the ground nearby, wings spread wide. Ti’rros stood watch over Nyr, who slept on the other side of the fire.

  The necklace noticed he’d awakened and said, Is there some requirement you’re lacking for your rite of passage, Dalan? Perhaps I can help you fulfill it on our way home.

  Dalan’s blood surged at the implicit message that he would bring the necklace home with him. “Am not sure it’s that simple.” His breath came in small, quick gasps. Saquey’s wings fluttered at the sound of his voice. “Is fine, Saquey, go back to sleep.”

  Ti’rros heard him and brought a cup of some warm liquid.

  “What’s this?”

  “A drink my people use to fortify themselves in difficult times.”

  Dalan took a sip and coughed. It obviously contained some alcohol, as well as a strange mixture of other flavors he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Some mints and other herbs, perhaps.

  “Ti’rros… what do you think that Purebreed was talking about… something about people marching north?”

  The Joey stared off toward the southeast. “It’s hard to say.”

  “Hmm,” Dalan said. “Thanks for the drink.”

  Ti’rros nodded and returned to sitting with her back to the small fire. Dalan wondered if her night vision surpassed his and Nyr’s. He set the cup down beside him, knowing the alcohol would steal more water from his thirsty body.

  When Ti’rros looked over at him, he picked the cup back up and pretended to sip from it.

  Her expression blank as always, she asked, “Why do your people keep the dragonflies as pets?”

  Dalan settled back against the tree and crossed his ankles. “Aren’t really pets so much as companions.”

  She gazed back out into the darkness, and the silence stretched between them. Ti’rros had never spoken much to him, so Dalan decided to give her a better explanation.

  He took a deep breath. “A long time ago, but still after the Catastrophe, after my people became the Omdecu Tribe, a brother and sister got lost in the woods. Raced against each other, flying to the edge of our tribelands.”

  Telling the story made him think of times he’d done the same, with a subsequent scolding and being told this same tale. He remembered the time he and Mishnir had raced as far as the grasslands and discovered the wounded tail-horse, but he pushed that memory away.

  “They found a dragonfly?” Ti’rros guessed, bringing Dalan back to the present.

  “Not exactly. The siblings returned to birth form,” he gestured to himself to demonstrate birth form. “Is when things started to go wrong. The forest is an entirely different place depending what meld you’re in. As a bird, everything seems much larger, but you can travel much faster. In their human forms, briar bushes grabbed at the boy’s clothing and the roots of trees tried to trip the girl.”

  Ti’rros raised a cup to her dark blue lips, watching him.

  Dalan focused on his words, thinking of the best way to narrate the story to an outsider. Passed down to him while transmelded, the words had been embellished with a mental subtext of emotions and images. “Somehow, the girl got injured. Some say she fell sick. Her brother refused to leave her side. They stared toward the skies, searching for the All-Seeing Eye, but from the forest floor, they couldn’t peer past the canopy. The brother put on a brave face for his sister, trusting their families would find them in time.”

  “Before what?”

  “Any number of things could have happened. The forest is much kinder to transmelders than to humans, and the girl was too weak and thirsty to transmeld. They may have run out of water. It may have been winter. Or she may have been closer to passing over to the other side than the storytellers remember.”

  Dalan waited to see if Ti’rros would say anything to that, but her eyes scanned the darkness.

  “While they waited, the boy took threads from their torn clothing, from their knapsacks, and from the single blanket his sister always carried with her. He wove them into a dragonfly doll and told his sister it would keep them company. He flew the doll above her as she lay on his lap, trying to cheer her up.”

  Saquey’s back wings fluttered, and its stubby antennae waved.

  “That’s right, Saquey. This is where your ancestors come in.” Dalan smiled. “Two dragonflies landed on the trees nearby, as though attracted by the dragonfly doll. The boy called out to the dragonflies and begged them for help. The girl said, ‘Give them the doll.’ The boy was reluctant to give up his creation, but he held it overhead. The dragonflies buzzed away, but before they left, one of them reached out its six legs, grabbed the doll, and carried it off.”

  Ti’rros held up a hand, the dark circles under her arms even more sickly-looking in the firelight. Saquey rose straight up in the air, its green body glinting, and then darted off into the darkness. Dalan crouched, reaching for his bag before remembering his gun wouldn’t be much use. He pulled it out anyway—it would have one shot, at least.

  Saquey coursed back and forth overhead before landing next to Dalan. Gripped in its front two legs were the remains of what Dalan guessed to be an owl. As Saquey’s mandibles moved, Dalan sat back down and let out a breath.

  “It must be all clear, then,” Ti’rros said. “So. What happened next?”

  A strange feeling came over Dalan at her words… something like a sense of belonging. At least between him and Ti’rros, trust had taken root. “Left off somewhere after…”

  “The dragonflies took the doll away from the boy.”

  “Yes. Carried it all the way back to the heart of Omdecu Tribe territory. They dropped the dragonfly doll, but the people didn’t understand. The dragonflies dove around them, darting back and forth. But when the parents of the missing children saw the dragonfly doll, they recognized the threads from the blanket their daughter always carried.”

  “So they found them and brought them home safely.” Dalan thought he detected a note of relief in Ti’rros’s voice. “That is how your tribe began bonding with the dragonflies, then?”

  Dalan nodded. “From that day forward, the dragonflies never left the children’s sides. They lived much longer than dragonflies should, and remained their guardians for the rest of their lives. When the brother and sister eventually died, their dragonflies followed them into death not long after.”

  “You wove your own dragonfly doll?”

  The owl’s body had almost completely disappeared, but Saquey’s mandibles still moved. “No. My people created the offerings, reflective discs the same colors the boy used as the threads of the drag
onfly doll. Only new adult dragonflies are attracted to the discs. The dragonflies are meant to act as our guides, to teach us how to transform as they do, from nymph to adult.”

  “An interesting story.” The hairs on Ti’rros’s head waved more slowly, as though she grew tired.

  Dalan remembered he was supposed to relieve her. He stood and stretched. “Will take over from here, Ti’rros.”

  She wasted no time in bedding down. As she lay down, Dalan quietly mentioned, “Saquey was attracted to the silver disc of the offerings, which is why I think it likes you so much.”

  Ti’rros’s gaze lingered on Saquey until she closed her eyes.

  Dalan stared out into the inky blackness, letting his eyes adjust as he faced away from the fire.

  At least let me try, hmmm?

  Dalan whispered, “What?”

  Is there some way I can help you as I have tried to do for Nyr?

  He decided to play along so the necklace wouldn’t guess he planned to leave it to its inanimate fate. “Before I left, one of the village elders—my grandmother, actually—told me that to return a man, not only would I need to bind with a dragonfly, but I also must solve a problem while I was out in the world.”

  He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. It seemed so long ago. “At first, I believed getting food outside of my tribe, without breaking the Teachings, would fulfill it. That was the boy in me. To become a man, I remembered it must be a problem of some consequence. Rescued Nyr. The battle last night made me realize how far-reaching my folly was. None of those people—Purebred or Changeling—would’ve died…”

  He trailed off, letting his head fall onto his knees. He had much to atone for, and some part of him feared what the elders would demand of him, while another part knew it would never be enough to make up for the lives lost because of his actions.

  Surely, saving the Joey from certain death under that boulder—

  He kept his voice low. “I once assumed saving Ti’rros would count. But she didn’t want saving. Would’ve preferred to die than be saved by our kind.”

  So... you must solve a problem. Something of consequence.

  “Yes, something of consequence.” He raised his head. He should leave, now, before Nyr awakened. Before Ti’rros would notice his absence in the darkness. He wondered if either of them would miss him.

  Were you as disturbed as I was by that Ageless woman keeping those poor Purebreeds as slaves? Would freeing them from the power she holds over them fulfill that requirement, hmm?

  “The Ancients said all men are created equal. No one should be master over another. Wanted to free them.” He frowned, thinking back to his inaction. Had his exhaustion clouded his judgment?

  Of course. As I said, you did the right thing. You couldn’t go against the Teachings and harm her.

  Dalan’s eyes narrowed at the necklace’s familiar way of speaking.

  But there are others between here and your homeland that need freed from their mistress. The beautiful sister of that woman holds sway over a town not far from here, manipulating them, bending them to her will... Unlike her sister, this woman cannot bind the townspeople through magic.

  “Not my place to interfere with other tribes.”

  I assure you, this tribe was doing fine on their own before she installed herself as goddess. All they need is the ability to see they can survive without her supposed ‘protection.’ We wouldn’t have to kill her… just remove her, kidnap her. In a few days’ time, the tribespeople would see they prospered long before she came along.

  Dalan doubted anything the necklace said was true, but he didn’t have the energy to confront it directly. “Would have to see for myself…”

  Of course. I am but a necklace. Perhaps what seems subjugation to me is only firm leadership. Nyr knows how to get there.

  Dalan shook his head. He should have known the necklace would find a way to involve Nyr. He wondered if the necklace pieces wanted to remain united, and considered prying into how Nyr had found them in the first place. Not asking the Purebreeds’ master—Soledad?—more questions had been prideful and foolish, but after some rest, he could reflect with clear eyes.

  “Will think on it.”

  Saquey remained at rest, and the necklace didn’t reply. In the silence, Dalan remembered something Soledad had said about them being used without knowing it. She controlled her two slaves through magic; perhaps her magic allowed her to see the true nature of the necklaces.

  If Soledad was right, he definitely didn’t want to make the necklace, or whatever magic was behind it, suspicious before he could find a way to remove it.

  Dalan slept some more after Nyr took the early morning watch. By the time he awoke, the sun was already high in the sky. The borderlands’ stifling heat made him want to fly away all the more. He heard no mice or beetles scavenging, no buzz of insect wings.

  The world waited for his decision.

  Nyr had changed clothes and eliminated all traces of the previous day’s battle while Dalan slept. It shouldn’t be so easy; Dalan couldn’t pretend the slaughter never happened and continue on as before.

  He’d thwarted the Purebreeds’ rightful vengeance when he’d helped Nyr flee. Every one of them had lost their lives because of a chain of poor decisions on his part. He might be the worst follower of the Teachings his tribe had ever seen.

  Ti’rros interrupted his dreary thoughts by handing him a small bag filled with slices of dried and sugared fruit—more of the supplies they’d stolen off the mule.

  “Thank you.” Dalan headed toward his homeland on foot, still too tired to transmeld.

  By midafternoon, he found himself treading on dried and bleached grasses, with Nyr and Ti’rros following him. By early evening, they’d reached the grasslands.

  Dalan tossed himself backwards and stared up at the sky, haloed by the tall grasses. Saquey passed through his field of vision, and Dalan imagined himself flying home beside his companion as he should’ve done days ago. As he would do, soon.

  He’d made his decision. He needed to say goodbye.

  Ti’rros peered down at him, the thin hairs on her head dancing. A tree’s expansive plume of thickly covered branches, so unlike the scraggly trees of the borderlands, flanked his view of her.

  The Joey curled her long tail around her body and planted herself against its trunk. “It seems it’s time for a rest.”

  Grasses rustled, and Dalan sat up to see Nyr tossing her bloodstained clothes on a bush. He hadn’t realized she’d been wearing Ancient fabrics, which rarely needed washing. The material held up for centuries, and sunlight easily cleansed it of stains and odors—though he imagined the bloodstains might linger until washed.

  After a small meal, the three of them set off again toward the west. Dalan kept silent, wondering how to broach the subject to his longtime traveling companions. Saquey forged ahead, skimming the tops of the grasses, sometimes grasping their heads between its fuzzy legs. For some reason, it reminded him of home, perhaps of one of many carefree flights through the woods with his siblings in bird or insect or bat melds. It made him wonder if, once he returned, the elders would ever permit him to return to his birth form, when the necklace could so easily spy on them.

  As though sensing his nostalgia, Saquey zoomed straight for him, until he and the dragonfly saw eye to multifaceted eye. Images of home sprang into life before him, clearer than memories. The elders’ circle of trees. His friends’ and extended family’s houses up in the canopy. His favorite spot for watching mutated boars roam below.

  “Were born near my tribelands, weren’t you, Saquey?” That would explain why the dragonfly recalled so many images of the forest the Omdecu Tribe called home. That thought put Dalan at ease, filling an emptiness he hadn’t noticed before.

  They waded through the grasses for hours, until he felt his stomach rumble. The quiet had been refreshing after the nightmarish events of the past few days. Dalan appreciated that no one tried to steer him toward any par
ticular course of action, not even the necklace. He almost felt like himself again, as long as he didn’t dwell on past events.

  So when he noticed a herd of elk foraging through the grasses to the north, he raised a hand. Within him, the jaguar’s spirit begged for release.

  “How about meat for dinner?” he asked. He decided it would be his parting gift to them. Then he would head home, he vowed.

  Ti’rros rubbed her palms together. “Hunting a herd that big is dangerous.”

  Nyr tipped her head. “Though with your Ancient weapon…”

  Dalan dug through his pack and pulled out his LEC6. He handed it to Ti’rros. “Wasn’t planning on using it, but you can cover me if things get out of hand.” To Nyr, he said, “Being around you seems to bring out the cat in me.”

  The transmeld came easily, but with no less pain than usual. As Dalan sank beneath the grasses, he noticed Nyr’s lips pressed firmly together. “No one cares about your opinion,” she said to no one in particular.

  Dalan pushed through the grasses toward the elk. As the grasses enveloped him, he heard Nyr talking to the necklace. “He’s a kid, what do you think? I don’t know. He feels like hunting, I guess.”

  He didn’t expect any of them to understand. The jaguar scented elk, and his more human concerns evaporated.

  He peered through the grasses at the herd, hunting for the right prey. Most of the specimens seemed young and healthy. If he pursued one of them, he’d risk a good kick or antler to the ribs. The jaguar slipped around the edge of the herd, keeping an eye out for scouts. On the northern side of the herd, he spotted a good candidate, a cow favoring her front leg.

  The breeze shifted, and several of the nearest animals raised their heads. A male bugled, and the herd moved away with wary looks in all directions. The female he’d picked followed at a slower pace, hobbling along on three legs.

  Without hesitation, the jaguar burst from the grasses. He leaped onto her back and sank his fangs into her neck. With the extra weight, the cow went down, but he’d misjudged the angle and slid down her flank. She flailed her legs as she landed on her side, and he dodged a kick. The rest of the herd fled.