by E A Comiskey
Risa called for Jared, and he came to me, offering his hand. With shuffling steps, hunched like an old woman, I made my way through the hall to the front door.
"She might attack me, you know."
"I don't think she will," he said.
"How do you know?"
One corner of his mouth turned up in a little smile. "Dragons are the protectors of those who cannot protect themselves."
"I get the feeling you're not telling me everything."
"The demon ran to your window. He'd be roasted if he was human."
My heart fluttered.
"Don't worry," he said, chuckling. "Did him good. I get the feeling too many things came too easily for him for too long. He's not bad, but he's like a spoiled child, frustrated to not have everything he wants."
"What does he want?" I asked, sincerely wanting to know.
"He wants to have it all, but life just doesn't work that way, you know?"
Yes. I knew.
With a deep, fortifying breath, I reached for the door handle and pulled. If dragons protected those whom it chose, if they sense which humans needed them, surely they must have some way of understanding people’s hearts.
The dragon lay stretched upon the earth. Her immense body wrapped around the corner of the building. Her attention snapped to the door, her lips drawn back from jagged rows of teeth. One yellow and black eye fell on me. A puff of smoke rose up from her nostrils. Her head turned toward me, and my insides turned to water. Every instinct screamed for me to run back into the building, but I fought to stand there and let the beast sniff me. Her nose explored my head and moved downward to my shoulders, my stomach, my legs.
I'm OK. I was hurt, but I'm better now. I'm OK. I'm not helpless anymore. You have to let him come. I formed the thoughts as carefully as I knew how, praying the creature could understand me.
She snorted, the low growl a vibration in the ground that tickled my feet.
Thank you for watching over me, but you can rest now.
The enormous head inched closer to me, and something about the movement caused my fear to evaporate. I lay my head on her snout. A tear that I couldn't have explained slipped from my eye and rolled onto her dark, glittering scales. Rest, but don't leave me. I may need a friend.
Again, the earth beneath me vibrated gently. The dragon pulled away, lifting herself into the air, disappearing beyond the trees. Then Hala was there, running toward me. For the first time since I'd known him, he'd appeared to age. He had the appearance of one who hadn't slept or eaten in a long time. His long hair was gone, burned away and shaggy.
He held my face between his palms, pressed his forehead to mine, and wept.
I pulled away from him and let Jared help me back to my room. Others were coming now. I paid no attention. My remaining strength was focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Risa stood in the center of the room, holding the baby. Hala gathered his match into his arms and held her while the healer helped me lie down.
I lay there, letting Jared check the pulse in my wrist, listen to my heart, and peek at my bandages. Hala took his child from Risa's arms.
"A little girl," he said, sinking into the chair Risa had so often sat in those past several days. "A green-eyed girl."
He met my eye. A tiny smile played on his lips. Tears filled his eyes. "Not what I expected."
I nodded. "Life is funny that way."
He kissed the child's head and looked at me once more. "The first child, then, but not the last. We will call her Nuttah. In my mother's language it means, 'from my heart.'"
Risa glanced at me. Jared had told me that he'd had to take extreme measures to save me and the baby. There would be no more children from me. Neither of us said anything to Hala.
Twenty-Seven
The crib had been moved out of my room.
I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the empty space, trying to ignore the pain in my engorged breasts. By then, it seemed pain was all that anchored me to the earth.
I'd been given a beautiful new chance at life. In my greed for Hala, I had destroyed it.
This was what I had left.
Risa came with Nuttah in her arms. Her little pink face was screwed up in a tearless cry. Milk spilled from my breasts as I reached for her.
We need each other, little one.
"I hope you're not too uncomfortable. She slept for more than four hours. I didn't want to disturb her. It's the longest I've slept in weeks. How can such a little person take up so much energy?" Risa chattered on.
I looked away, focusing my eyes on my daughter. Risa had no right to complain. When I looked up again, she was leaning against the windowsill, looking out toward the summer day.
Last summer we had been traveling. Those were the happiest days of my life. How did she feel about them? She'd been arguing with Hala, nearly left him to be the Queen of New Faerie, and had been given the chance at motherhood.
Except I still wanted to take that chance away from her.
Nuttah's little head fell away from my breast. I laid her against my chest and asked Risa, "Do you regret any of it?"
She jumped, as though she'd forgotten I was in the room. When she turned toward me I realized that, like Hala, she had aged in these past months.
"Any of what?" she asked.
"Anything."
"Do you?"
I lay against the pillows with the precious warmth of the infant against my heart. Everything that had happened had been necessary for her creation. "No," I said.
"Me either." She yawned and laughed a little self-consciously.
"Rest," I told her. “I'll watch her for a little while.”
Her eyes held words of protest, but she said nothing, nodded, and left the room.
For the first time since her birth, I was alone with my daughter. I pressed my cheek against her soft hair and wondered how I would ever have the will to let her go from my arms again.
We were still like that when Hala came in for the mid-day meal.
He peeked through the crack in the door.
"Come in," I told him.
He entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed.
"You were sitting on the edge of my sick bed when I first met you."
"Not really," he said. "I was holding the world's biggest icicle when I first met you."
I made a face at him and he smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. He reached out and ran his fingers down my cheek. "I miss you."
I swallowed hard. "I'm still here."
"It's not the same, though, is it?"
"You had to know this would happen," I said.
He shook his head, but it wasn't really a denial. We'd both known. We'd made a deliberate choice to close our eyes to reality, choosing instead to revel in a temporary dream.
The words Puah had spoken to me so many months ago filled my mind. “We are all just a choice or two away from our destiny.”
Twenty-Eight
I started walking again. What else did I have to do? Was I to stay in the house watching Risa fuss over Nuttah's first bites of food? Her ability to roll over? The babble I could not hear her make?
At night I could steal her away, nurse her to sleep, keep her close to me, but the days belonged to Risa.
I walked to the top of the towering hill and found the stone monument Hala had built there. I followed the river to where it spilled in rushing falls from a higher level.
"You shouldn't be out by yourself like that," Hala had said that night when I returned. "It's not safe. The villagers tell all kinds of stories."
The next morning, I set my sights on the forest, where the dragon's lair was known to be. The trees closed over me, shielding me from the light drizzle that had been falling for days. My feet carried me steadily onward. No longer did thick growth impede my progress. I was as at home treading upon the earth as any animal.
I'd been told the beast lived in a cave, but when I came to it, it was more like a burrow; a wide opening in a low hill. A
round me, the forest felt still and heavy, though beneath the thick carpet of leaves there was a flurry of constant activity, life and death playing out with each passing second. I sat, folding my feet under me. A flicker of fear tickled my stomach. Its presence gave me joy. If I could fear death, there must be some part of me that hadn't yet given up on life.
I waited.
The sun moved behind the veil of clouds. A moth landed on my knee and fluttered away again. I inhaled deeply of the scent of decaying leaves and dampness.
Thoughts of Hala, our journey, making love, laughing around the fire, holding Risa's hand, making promises, Puah's warnings, the wonder of my first day in Tower City, my father panting over me, laughing as the men of the village took turns with me, my knife slicing across a woman's neck, firing a gun into a crowd of children…
I deserved nothing.
I was nothing.
Nothing existed.
Everything was dust.
My mind was blank. There were no thoughts left to be obsessed over.
The dragon's yellow eyes shone in the darkness. She blinked at me and stepped forward, leaving the cave behind. Smoke rose from her snout. A smell of sulphur clung to her.
I'm so lost.
She came close, close enough to burn me or to snap me in half with her powerful jaws.
Why did you guard me? I am nothing.
Her mighty body rose up on hind legs and she released fire into the sky before lowering herself once more.
Is it even possible that there is any good thing I'm capable of doing? Anything that will actually mean something in the vast space of time? I am all alone in the world.
She curled around me, and I lay against her tough hide and slept. In my dreams, a handsome woman with long, shining black hair and a fringed leather dress lay a baby in my arms and told me, "Be strong, Jax. You have a great work ahead of you."
"I am nothing. I ruined my chance," I loved the sound of my own voice, low and soft and feminine.
"Start again, Jax. You can't give up. You have a great work ahead of you."
I woke as the sun was setting, rested, but with my breasts heavy and tender. Nuttah! I hadn't fed her all day!
The dragon shifted the long tail she'd wrapped around me, and I raced back toward the village, nearly slamming into James as I reached the other side of the woods.
"Jax! Are you OK?" He held my shoulders and looked me over as if he expected to see something that warranted immediate medical attention.
"I'm fine. I need to go home, though."
"Yeah! I'd say you do. Hala's got half the village on a search and rescue mission."
I frowned. "Why?
"Uhm… because the last anyone saw you was when you traipsed off toward the dragon's lair twelve hours ago. Where have you been all day?"
I took a step back from him. "I was walking. Is there a law against that?"
"There are no laws at all, but there's one grumpy demon leading us, and he doesn't like you to disappear."
I lifted my chin a little. "He's neither my king nor my match. I will walk where I please."
James held his hands up in surrender, and I stalked past him toward the house. How dare he? He had all but ignored me for weeks and now he wanted to make an issue of where I walked and when?
My righteous indignation cooled when I walked in and saw Risa pacing with Nuttah, trying to quiet her cries. I could have wept with her. "I'm so sorry. Here." I held out my arms, and Risa handed the baby to me. In an instant she was silent, greedily taking her milk.
Hala appeared a moment after I was seated. He threw the door open so hard it banged against the wall, creating a vibration that ran through the floor. "Where on the Creator's earth have you been?"
I held the baby to my chest, which all but eliminated my ability to speak.
"You can't just go running off into the woods whenever you feel like it. People here have things to do. We're trying to build a city. We don't have time to go chasing after a temperamental girl."
I shifted so that the baby was in the crook of my elbow. Not an especially comfortable position for either of us, but one that allowed me to speak. She was hungry enough that she didn't seem to care much. "I was walking. There was no need to send anyone after me."
"Walking? Just like that? I'm supposed to accept that?" His hands trembled in his fury.
Risa stepped toward him, placing a hand on his arm. "Hala. It's alright. No…"
He yanked his arm away.
"Yes. You are supposed to accept that,” I said. “I decided to go for a long walk. It's something I find calming and it builds my strength. What does it matter to you? I am nothing more to you than any other resident of this place.”
"Nothing?" I couldn't have guessed if he was about to lunge at me or crumple to the ground and cry. I clung to Nuttah, taking strength from the tiny weight of her in my arms. "Is that what you believe? That you are nothing to me? You're my…"
His what? Not his daughter. No longer his lover. Certainly not his match. He couldn't even say that I was the mother of his child. Not with Risa standing there, staring at him with wide, sad eyes.
We waited, wife and mistress, for him to finish his sentence. Instead he pointed at the floor. "You stay in this house where you're safe. Don't make me go looking for you again." He stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him so forcefully that Nuttah began to cry. I moved her into my other arm and she latched on again, more hungry than frightened.
When she was settled, I looked up just in time to see Risa disappear into her room.
Through my anger, frustration, and sadness, I found a kernel of joy. I was alone with my daughter.
"Be strong, Jax. You have a great work ahead of you."
I gazed at Nuttah's perfect little face and thought, for you, I can be strong.
~*~
In the morning, I waited for Hala to leave before slipping my feet into my boots. Nuttah had already nursed. I could go out for three hours or more before she'd need me again.
Risa sat on the bench next to me. "Please don't go," she said.
I forced a little smile for her. "I'll stay close."
"But…"
I sat up and paid closer attention to her. The dark circles had returned under her eyes.
"Are you feeling well?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I feel terrible. I can't stop vomiting, and…" She held a hand to her stomach. "I think…"
Concern rose up. I'd never seen Risa ill. What sickness could affect one who'd survived two human lifespans?
"It's impossible, Jax."
I frowned, waiting for more of an explanation.
"I think I'm pregnant."
I'd been punched in the stomach. I couldn't draw breath. My mouth hung open in astonishment, and there was nothing I could do about it.
A tiny smile tugged at her lips. "Can you imagine? After all this time? But, truly, I feel awful. You know, maybe you could walk and take Nuttah with you. Then I can rest."
Take Nuttah with me? Risa, pregnant?
I'm free.
The thought screamed through my mind. She placed the sleeping infant in my arms, went to her room and shut the door, leaving me stunned. That's all she had to say? Nothing about Nuttah? Nothing about Hala and me? Nothing at all?
As if in a dream, I retrieved the sling from the hook next to the door and wrapped Nuttah against my chest exactly the way I'd carried Wolf nearly two years before. Opening the door, I found him waiting there for me, tail wagging, tongue lolling, looking much more like a puppy than a fearsome predator. "We're taking Nuttah with us today. What should we show her?"
He cocked his head at me as though to say, "I'm not sure. What do you think?"
"I think we should go toward the waterfall." I had bravery enough to defy Hala and go walking, but not quite enough to go to the dragon's lair again, even if that place called to my soul.
My feet found purchase on the good earth, and the weight that constantly pressed down on my soul was
lifted away on a spirit of excitement. My daughter was with me! And if Risa really was pregnant… everything was different.
The first raindrop pattered against my face when we'd nearly reached the falls. Dark clouds seemed to have boiled up out of nothing. I hunched over Nuttah, trying to keep her dry, fighting panic. At the top of the rise, and a quarter mile to the north, there were caves. If I could get there, we could ride out the storm. I scrambled up the muddy embankment on hands and toes, focused entirely on not falling and landing with Nuttah in the mud. Perhaps it was because of that intense concentration that I failed to notice we weren't the only ones to take refuge in the caves.
A tall man with a beard reaching the middle of his chest stood in the mouth of the cave, pointing a gun at Wolf.
"No!"
His eyes shifted to me.
"Wolf! Down!"Wolf dropped to the ground, but the hair on his neck stayed stiff.
"We need shelter, please."
The man nodded, lowering the gun a fraction, and I raced into the cave just as rain turned to hail. "Thank you," I said, shivering.
"Hell of a day to be out with a baby."
"I didn't see the storm coming."
"Obviously." He stomped off to a large pack and produced a large, soft, clean blanket which he held out to me, staying as far as possible, as if we were contagious.
Grateful, I lowered myself to the rocky floor, unwrapped the sling, offered Nuttah my breast, and wrapped the blanket around both of us.
While I fussed with the baby, the man built a fire at the mouth of the cave, never really turning his back on Wolf who, in turn, never took his eyes from the stranger. Finally, I asked, "Who are you?"
He leaned against the wall across from me, stretching his long legs in front of him. "My name is Marco. I'm just a wanderer."
