by Marc Secchia
Her Shapeshifter husband winked gingerly at her. Grandion’s eyes were almost as blue as his bruised face. Lia was careful not to jostle him. He had fourteen broken bones and severe burns covering his right flank; similarly, most of Hualiama’s back and legs was bandaged, but both of their burns and injuries, sustained by landing unconscious atop a moving landslide, were healed at the rapid pace afforded by draconic magic. She estimated they might be back on their feet after another week. That, or Grandion would drive her off the Isle of Sanity with his carping about having to lie still and heal.
Dragons. Worse, male Dragons. They did not make good patients.
She said, “We should investigate what became of the fragments of Numistar which exploded southward toward those mountain ranges Yiisuriel identified. No surprises.”
“No adventure?” Grandion asked.
“Adventure? Don’t wake me before next week, please,” Flicker murmured, pretending to snore as he wriggled into a new position.
“Life with you is all the adventure I need,” Lia said, kissing Grandion upon the cheek.
“Life, and a kissing boulder,” he teased.
“With children,” she whispered.
Even in the greatest happiness, grief shadowed her soul. Hualiama, Princess of Fra’anior and Empress of the Lost Isles, gazed out over the congregation of her nation, the remaining Air Breathers and the roosts and caves they supported, as the mighty Land Dragons gathered into their family groups. Herimor was beautiful, what little she had seen of it so far. She wondered at the compulsion that had spurred the Land Dragons on to reach this sprawling realm, which they had attained at great cost.
She wanted so desperately to pour out her emotions in dance, but a broken ankle had put paid to that idea.
Her final, stumbling dance had netted her the First Egg, however, hauled out of the Rift after Numistar’s defeat by a group of courageous Runners, supported by Infurion. The Egg now floated between Yiisuriel and two of her Air Breather kin in a sling of Kinetic magic, and though it was four miles beneath the Cloudlands, she could clearly see its violet-white radiance shining through. The ethereal song of its magic teased her senses with the knowledge of a mighty, alien draconic presence slumbering within. What a prize she must yet protect! Might it stir and be born in her lifetime?
Istariela had waited over three thousand years. Hualiama’s heart simmered with love and concern for her shell-mother. Despite this victory, Dramagon could not be regarded as dealt with, for she alone knew the fate of his soul’s remnant, the pernicious, corrupting, animate ruzal. May her vessel endure unblemished. May Izariela’s sacrifice not cause her to pay the ultimate price.
How many years might a Star Dragoness live? She shivered delicately, trembling on the tipping point where past and future seemed to mingle like dissimilar yet incongruously harmonious fires.
Life was a manifold tapestry of dances. Once, an impudent girl had dared to dance with a Dragon. To love him. How little she had foreseen; what terrors and glories awaited! She had rescued her family and pursued her love across the Island-World, and in so doing, had uncovered a legacy and a destiny that stole her breath to this very day. Dragonfriend. Star Dragoness. Firstborn of the Shapeshifters. Mother to a race not sprung of her womb, for that privilege might never be hers to enjoy, but of the fires that lived within her soul. She was the Dragonstar, the secret protector of the masterwork wrought by her mighty shell-father’s talons. Hualiama pondered, with a heaviness that weighed like Dramagon’s own paw upon her chest, what enemy could be so terrible that even the Ancient Dragons had been forced to flee unknowable distances between the galaxies to secure their freedom?
Aye, whatever adventures Herimor might hold, Flicker was right. For today, this was enough.
She was a girl in love with her Dragon, and she was content.
Epilogue: The History of the First Egg
HUaliama chuckled at Flicker’s scandalised expression. “Aye, Flicker. I do mean that Immadior performed a reverse birth on the First Egg of the Dragons in order to hide it for thousands of our years.”
Now, he managed to imitate a constipated ralti sheep. “Wouldn’t that … hurt? Ooh!”
“Trust you, dragonet,” she said with great asperity, “to turn a beautiful story of redemption into a crude examination of bodily functions.”
He curled up upon the mound of her belly, purring happily as he examined its rotundity with what he probably imagined was a sage expression. “What have you been doing with that Grandion, then, I ask you?”
“Brooding,” she said primly.
“The word you’re looking for is ‘waddling’,” Flicker retorted.
Lia tweaked his left paw with her hand. “Growing triplets keeps a girl busy. I hear you’ve been busy, too –”
“Siring clutches of dragonets from here to Herimor,” he bragged. “I am –”
“Incorrigible?”
“A virile force of nature.”
Lia’s jaw dropped as she realised that he was serious. “Flicker! I thought this was supposed to be a history of the First Egg?”
The white dragonet preened shamelessly, purring so loudly now that Lia thought her babies might just start rattling together like dry peas. He said, “A suitably detailed history of my extensive exploits would take far longer, and be far more –”
“Socially unacceptable,” growled Grandion, pouring into their roost in one hundred and ten feet of sleek, predatory menace. “What are you doing with my wife, scoundrel – my fetchingly unclad wife!” The Dragon whirled his eye-fires humorously at them through the small arched doorway that led to their ‘Human nook’, situated beside the great crysglass windows that looked out over the new Academy buildings. “I feel a transformation coming on.”
“Between the two of you, I will never tell this story!” Hualiama huffed. “Can’t a girl relax and watch a fiery suns-set without all the drama and hassle? My roost, my –”
“I’ve a perfect dragonet-roost right here,” said Flicker, patting her bare and very rotund stomach.
“I’ll just go change. But I’m listening,” said the Tourmaline.
Hualiama stretched lazily on the inclined lounger, wishing her belly would stop swelling quite so dramatically. Soon she would be rounder than she was tall, in her Human form – well, that was the standing joke around the Dragon Rider Academy. Warningly, she said, “I’m kicking you out after story time. Flicker, it’s time you settled down with a sweet dragonet …”
He blinked his nictitating membranes innocently. “Not when I’m single-pawedly introducing the higher magical functions to the bloodlines of the dragonets of our Island-World –” she gasped “– both sides of the Rift, might I add. Exuberantly.”
“Flicker!” she gasped again.
“Don’t think you’re the only one to whom Amaryllion gave a fire-gift,” the dragonet said smugly. “I am irrefutably prodigious, like a new wind blowing across the Isles –”
“A white-pawed pandemic!” Lia suggested, with a wicked chuckle.
“Takes one to know one, mommy to untold Shapeshifters,” Flicker grinned toothily. “Now, how’s my bedtime story shaping up?”
“I’ve always wanted a white Dragonhide rug just beside the entrance to this nook,” she suggested. “Alright. So, back in the days when the comet struck the world, throwing up the Rim-Wall Mountains and carving out this great crater in which we live, it was assumed that all of the First Eggs would hatch. Fra’anior was first, of course, and then others such as Immadior, Dramagon, Hordazar, Numistar, Westurdion, Amaryllion –”
“Westurdion?” Flicker cut in.
“The legendary Ancient Dragon of the Western Isles, whose head is said to rest within Herimor, and whose tail curls about the frozen wastes of the far North – and you can wipe that expression off your cheeky jaw, my friend. I received this information directly from the flaming mouth of the Great seven-headed Onyx himself. Daddy darling.”
PROUD SHELL-FATHER TO A STAR DRAGONESS!
/> Fra’anior had always been able to outdo thunder itself, and this occasion was no exception.
“Aye, your Island-shaking daddy,” Flicker noted. “Almost as prolific as me.”
“Blasphemer.”
Hualiama’s eyes widened, however, as Human-Grandion strode into her nook, performed a very draconic flexion in front of the mirror located on the wall to her left hand, and lowered himself onto the soft, ralti-wool-covered recliner that covered the floor in a great, twelve-foot diameter mass of comfortable cushioning, with an easy grace that invited lascivious examination by his wife. Dragons!
Rather more flushed of cheek than a moment before, she clucked, “And when will you learn to wear clothing, you shameless Dragon?”
“Not this week, dearest.”
“You’ve been saying that for all twenty-six years of our marriage.”
“You love it. Besides, who’s counting?” Yet his eyes communicated that he understood the wonder and the angst of having waited two and a half decades to be stunned by an unexpected pregnancy. He knew she had given up hope. Lovingly, the man-Dragon levitated her back and shoulders so that he could slip an arm beneath her neck. He kissed her forehead lingeringly. “Cosy? How fare our sons?”
“Sons? So you’d like to think.”
“I advise sons. Girl-eggs are far too much trouble,” Flicker goaded, winking extravagantly at Human-Grandion.
Hualiama snorted, “Fricasseed dragonet for dinner?”
“Aye, I know you love keeping secrets,” the Tourmaline Shapeshifter noted. “I will graciously and draconically permit just a few. One secret that I will not keep, however, is how very, very profoundly I adore you, o Blue-Star of Fra’anior, with a love far deeper than any Island’s foundations –”
Flicker made a rude gagging noise. “Story now. Kisses later.”
Lia said, “Anyhow, as I was relating, the First Eggs all eventually hatched over the course of hundreds of years, save for one. And as the Ancient Dragons and their Lesser Dragon-kin came to inhabit the Island-World, it came to pass that they quarried over tokens of power and treasures and roosts and territories, and the object of very much dissent was the last of the First Eggs – Grandion, will you stop panting in my ear?”
Her faux wrath brought another of his lazy grins to wobble her heart most agreeably. Still, she said, “I’m uncomfortable, and have you any idea how much heat three egglings create in my belly? Thanks.” Accepting a sip of cool prekki-fruit juice from a tall crystal glass Grandion lifted to her lips, she continued, “So, a legend grew up that this First Egg must contain an Ancient Dragon of very particular powers, for the Egg tarried and would not hasten to crack the shell. As an aside, the First Egg was not actually the first. So let’s get that bit of history straight. Technically, it was the fifth to impact and we could just as well call it the Last Egg of the Ancient Dragons, or the Laziest Egg.”
“And a thousand historians summarily faint with apoplectic seizures,” Grandion chortled.
“Anyways, this misnamed First Egg was still a font of unimaginable power. The Ancient Dragons had a series of squabbles over it as the true powers of this Egg came to light. Fra’anior was not giving away any details, and I’m barely allowed to hazard guesses, apparently, without him referring to muzzling my sassy mouth – I like to imagine he’s mistaking me for you, Flicker – but suffice to say that our old adversaries Numistar and Dramagon were more than interested in tapping it for its transformative and transmutative power. As you’ve already seen, a First Egg changes the environment around it and is capable of carrying Dragon fires for enormous distances between the stars without loss of life or function, while apparently negating or minimising the passage of time. Both Dramagon and Numistar sought the Egg in the hope that its powers would grant them an immortal existence in bodily form.”
“After many battles between the Ancient Dragon-kin, it was Immadior who took it upon herself to protect the First Egg in the haven of her body, far beneath the great expanse of Cloudlands ocean called Immadior’s Sea. She curled around Immadia Island. She’s the reason those Cloudlands are such a unique colour, for the magic that leached out of her slumbering body changed the nature of those Islands to the North, and continues to do so to this day.”
“Is Immadior alive?” Grandion inquired.
“Not as we understand life, but Fra’anior and I disagree on this point. I believe she might well be cold-fires alive, but he says that no spark remained within her, and that the damage caused by her reverse-birthing the First Egg and holding its transformative essence within her being for centuries was irreversible. But I … I just don’t believe that’s the Balance of the Harmonies as I interpret them.”
“By my wings!” Flicker snorted, staring at her stomach in astonishment. He checked his jaw gingerly. “One of your egglings just kicked me.”
“I’m tempted too,” Grandion chuckled, slipping his hand down to the spot. “Ooh, did you feel that?”
Thump-thump, went the little foot inside her, urgently.
“Takes after her shell-father,” Lia grumbled. “She likes to kick me under the ribs, too.”
Gurgling with dragonet-laughter, Flicker pushed Grandion’s hand aside to prod back at the playful seven month-old. “Huh! Go on, kick for Uncle Flicker. There! Did you see that? He likes me. I’m going to teach you all the naughty things … ahem. We’ll have so much to talk about. So, rolling on, Numistar then sliced open her shell-sister’s egg pouch in order to –”
“Flicker!” Lia growled.
“– bad words. Sorry. I’ll just settle here for another kick in the jaw.” Flicker rolled his eye-fires drolly.
Lia winked back. “Be my guest.”
Flicker said, “Well. Distracted by your initial attack, followed swiftly by a treacherous and overwhelming Land Dragon assault, Numistar lost the First Egg and it eventually fell down a crack beneath Immadia Island – right?”
“It was deep-frozen and pushed down by Theadurial-infested Land Dragons, strengthened for the task by the S’gulzzi fire spirits,” Grandion corrected. “Lia travelled several thousand leagues under Immadior’s Sea with the Egg in a river of Earthen Fires, fighting the treacherous S’gulzzi all the way with the help of a Magma Dragon, as I understand it – although I’ve no idea how the Magma Dragon survived those insane pressures – while some Dragons panicked and flapped about in the real world above the Cloudlands, trying to keep up. Lia made that horrendous bargain with Numistar, defeated the Empress, restored Dragon rule North of the Rift, and then –”
“In one of my rather less bright moments,” Hualiama took up the tale, “as far as Star Dragonesses misinterpreting the Balance go, I misused the Egg’s powers to help the Dragon Haters, who were not half as hateful anymore, to cross the Rift. At that point, Numistar failed to surprise us with a renewed thirst for treachery – well, I will grant that we agreed that all bargains were null and void after we dealt with family matters at Fra’anior Cluster.”
“So, what exactly happened at the Rift?” Grandion asked.
“That explosion?” Flicker chirped.
“The Rift was like a colossal volcanic eruption corked up for a thousand years, building up pressure until it would inevitably detonate,” Hualiama explained. “Fra’anior the Onyx had tasked one of his shell-brothers with dealing with the Earthen Fires. Despite Infurion’s affinity for that branch of draconic magic, let’s just say it wasn’t going very well from an engineering perspective and Dramagon’s minions took advantage of his mistake to create the ultimate weapon. During all that, our old foe Numistar had a jolly good run at blowing up our entire Island-World, and I –”
“Like a volcano?” squeaked Flicker.
“No, like a blade slicing a prekki-fruit in half,” said Lia, illustrating with the edge of her hand. The dragonet gasped. “It would’ve sheared right through our planet. I had to … I had no choice. I fear that in the future, Herimor will be cut off from the North.”
Grandion wheezed, “You …”
Hualiama knew her eyes must seem haunted as she crooked her neck to regard her Tourmaline Dragonlove. Her heart squeezed afresh every time she looked at him. Handsome was such a pitiful word. This Shapeshifter was diamond! “Better alive for now, than dying on a lifeless fragment of a shattered planet, Grandion. I know the solution is far from perfect, but the Rift provides an outlet for those terrible forces of opposing magic. I believe it will be the paramount task of our descendants to set its Imbalance right, once and for all.”
His gemstone eyes crinkled at the edges as the Shapeshifter Dragon regarded his wife fondly, but with a not-unfamiliar hint of exasperation. “You were just Balancing the weight of millions of souls in a cosmic battle for the fate of our Island-World? That trivial task?”
Lia smiled at him with her eyes. “Whilst romancing only the most gorgeous hunk of Dragonflesh that e’er graced the airs of –”
“Ralti poo!” shouted Flicker.
“Having babies is far harder work than lassoing stars and defeating Ancient Dragons, anyways. My feet ache as never before.”
Acting upon the unsubtle hint with a fake-dutiful air, Grandion gently rearranged Lia on the soft couch and took her feet in his massively powerful hands, saying, “Well, this Dragon certainly values continuing to be able to appreciate the manifold splendour of his Humanlove by the light of a volcanic Jeradian suns-set. I had no idea, my precious flame-heart, of the cost of Balance.”
Ooh, she’d start purring in a moment. Lia closed her eyes.
Back in character, the dragonet insinuated, “After that, you trotted around Herimor making Shapeshifters whilst I simultaneously sired untold clutches of magnificent dragonets, but, o straw-head most mysterious – wake up! Where exactly is the First Egg, now?”
