by Nicky Kyle
"No."
"Yes," Dea insisted. "Come, sit down. We should talk."
Louisa continued to shake her head but she let Dea draw her over to a table by the hearth and take the broom away again. Dea leaned it against the chimney and took a seat herself. She extended a hand palm-up on the table. After a moment, Louisa took it.
"It's time to stop lying to yourself," Dea told her. "I'm certainly not fooled and, at least after tonight, I don't think you are either."
Louisa looked down. She worried her lip between her teeth and said nothing.
"There's no sense blaming yourself," Dea pointed out. "You didn't conjure the dragon on purpose. No one could expect you to control a magic you didn't even know you possessed. You haven't been taught how to manage it, and that's not your fault. But you could learn."
Louisa said nothing for several minutes. She chewed on her lip and studied her empty palms.
Dea didn't rush her; just sat patiently and watched the crumbling embers in the hearth and the steady curl of smoke up the stone-and-plaster chimney.
"You really think I would do all right at that sort of thing? That sort of learning?"
"I think you would be brilliant at that sort of thing," Dea assured her. "Look what you did without any training at all, Louisa. Personally I look forward to seeing what you can do once you actually know what you're doing."
"And… and the dragon would go away from here when I did? There wouldn't be any more fires, or animals being stolen, or—or anything else?"
"None. Without you, there is no dragon."
Louisa thought about it for another minute. Then she asked, "What if I stayed here?"
"Well, then I think the dragon would get stronger and stronger the closer you get to that wedding you don't want." Dea's voice was soft but firm. "I think it quite likely that more than just some sheep would get hurt. Mayhap the groom, or even your parents since they're the ones who have put you in this position. Dragons," she added, "are honorable yes, but they do not have the same sense of morality that humans do—especially not imaginary dragons."
"Well." Louisa wiped her eyes briskly with the back of her hand. "Mayhap I don't want to marry Dane but he's a perfectly nice lad and he doesn't deserve being eaten by a dragon, even an imaginary one, and ma and da certainly don't, even if they do think a girl ought to be married for her own good." She took a deep breath, gathering herself together from stray bits and wisps of worries, then stood up.
"All right," she said. "Let me pack."
Dea smiled. "I think you're making a good decision."
Louisa nodded, not meeting her eyes. She had her lip between her teeth again and was worrying at it like a dog with a bone it wasn't convinced it really wanted but couldn't bear to let go.
"I think you'll enjoy the university," Dea told her. "And I'm sure you'll like Klarns. It's a colorful city and fond of celebrating—a bit too fond for my tastes sometimes," she added wryly. "I've spent too much time alone on the road and off studying with dragons to really enjoy big human festivals, but you seemed quite in your element here in the inn. It's just a guess, but I imagine you'll do just as well if not better in an even bigger, livelier crowd."
"It does get a bit dull here sometimes," Louisa admitted, then flinched. Her head came up with a jolt and she met Dea's eyes with with a wide, startled gaze. "Did—did you say Klarns? As in the Klarns that's on the other end of the world?"
"Not the whole world," Dea clarified. "Just this continent. There are others, you know…" Seeing that her words didn't appear to be offering any comfort, she changed tack. "Yes, I mean that Klarns, but it's not a bad journey there this time of year. It'll get hotter as we go south, true, but that means no slogging through snow or sleet and I imagine any woman who can conjure an illusory dragon can learn how to make herself seem unappealing to the sort of insects who like to bite and sting. I can probably teach you some helpful tricks in that regard, if you like." Dea was trying hard to be encouraging; it wasn't something she got much practice at, spending time with dragons or by herself, but Louisa seemed to appreciate the effort if the watery smile she offered in return was any indication.
Dea continued in a voice as cheery as she could muster: "I've made the journey there several times. Admittedly I'm not very sociable, but I expect you'll be able to bear with me for a few months—and if I grow too tiresome, well there are always convoys and caravans with trade goods and performers and curious pilgrims heading to Klarns you could travel the rest of the way with instead without much difficulty. Less difficulty than traveling with a crotchety partial-dragon faerie godmother-in-training."
That earned her a weak laugh, much to Dea's relief; she had not known Louisa long but already she could tell that the innkeeper's daughter was by nature a cheerful person, and seeing her sorrowful had been uncomfortable. She wondered what Louisa's parents had been thinking when they had arranged her marriage, but of course it had probably been the same thing her own parents had thought so many years ago when they had locked her in that tower: that it would be for her own good in the end. Well, there was no full-fledged dragon here to rescue Louisa, but the Stylesville Inn was no impenetrable tower ringed with hungry beasts and a brambly hedge either. An apprentice dragon would do quite well, probably.
"You'll come?" Dea asked. "You'll give Klarns a try?"
Louisa shrugged. "It doesn't seem I've much of a choice."
"Of course you have," said Dea, suddenly firm. "You can go anywhere you like. I've been to a great many places, all over this continent and the others; all you have to do is tell me what sort of place you're looking for, what sort of thing you'd like to do with your life, and I'll offer as many possibilities as I can. The university is just a suggestion—"
"Not that," Louisa interrupted, flapping her hands as though Dea's words were pesky moths she could shoo away. "No, the university sounds—well, it sounds like something out of a faerie tale." She laughed. "Not something I ever thought in a hundred years that I would… no, I meant it doesn't seem as though I've a choice about leaving. I've got to go somewhere, so why not Klarns, I suppose?"
Dea shrugged. "You could stay," she pointed out. "Get used to your marriage with young Dane, learn to like—or at least live with—the idea. He seems a nice enough fellow. You could probably even manage to be happy, in a way. If you come to terms with the idea, you'll stop conjuring the dragon, and life here will go back to normal for everyone. I might even be able to teach you how to stop calling it on purpose, teach you how to suppress your gifts instead of master them. It's your choice what you do with your life. You don't have to leave."
Louisa looked around the room. It was low-ceilinged and plain with soot-stains above the hearth and splotches of assorted liquors and foodstuffs on the wooden boards of the floor. The doorway to the kitchen was covered by nothing more than a long sheet of cloth that bore the signs of much passage by someone whose hands were too full of food and drink to flick it aside. A narrow wooden stair led up to the second floor where they had the rooms for visitors. There was a faintly agricultural look to everything, not so much in that there was dirt or mud anywhere other than the floor but more in the feeling of the room; the people who ate here and drank here brought the wet smell of fresh-turned earth and musky goats in with them, and while the dirt could be swept out the smell—the feeling—lingered.
"I think I do," Louisa said quietly. She met Dea's eyes again. There were tear-streaks on her blotchy pink face but her eyes were clear. "I think it would be best for—for everyone."
"Probably," Dea agreed. "I'm sorry, for what it's worth. Sometimes home isn't."
"Do you miss yours ever?" Louisa asked. "Your—your castle?"
Dea blinked. "No," she said, after a moment's startled reflection. "To be honest it's been so long since I was there that I don't think of it as home anymore."
"Where is home then, for you?"
"With one of the dragons, I suppose?" Dea shrugged. "That or the road. I've been traveling for—oh, for lo
nger than you've been alive, now. I like being on the move." She grinned. "I suppose it's the dragon in me: I don't like staying in one place too much, don't like being bored. I'd rather see something new than go back to somewhere that I know."
"I suppose you've found the right life, then."
"I think so," Dea agreed. "Which is good—there's not much going back once you've started down the draconian path." Her smile was crooked and full of more teeth than most people had. "It's so hard to explain the wings and scales in any other profession, too."
Louisa giggled then stopped, awed. "Do you—do you really have wings?"
"Not yet. Not really. Just sort of—the beginnings of wings. They're not good for much but getting in the way of the straps of my pack yet, honestly." Dea shrugged, then smirked. "I'm afraid I can't offer the traditional dragonback-flight to the distressed damsel," she teased, "but I can jump off very tall things without getting hurt so long as I take my shirt off first so that I can glide down on my stubby little skin-flaps, like a maple seed." She smiled and added wryly, "Mind you, doing so is a bit awkward right now because I'm still mostly mammalian in front; full dragons only have flat scales to expose which is why they don't bother wearing clothes to begin with." The warm blush on Louisa's cheeks made Dea curse herself silently; she knew the girl had taken a fancy to her, and here she was talking about her bosom.
Wanting to change the subject, she said quickly, "At any rate, may I offer you a bit of advice? Not from a dragon or a faerie godmother or an apprentice, but from a—from a former princess?" Louisa nodded, still looking very pink about the face. "Even if you don't want to say your farewells in person you should tell your parents that you're leaving. In a letter, perchance, if you'd rather not do it to their faces."
Louisa started, staring at Dea in shock. Dea sighed. She should probably explain about dragon-eyed insights, but perhaps not until the girl had had a few days to get used to some of the less strange aspects of Dea's current state of being halfway between species. For now she just said, "Sometimes farewells are easier when they're not spoken face-to-face. But you can still explain to them… well, whatever parts of it you want to explain." The smile she offered was rueful. "That's the one thing I wish I'd done differently when I left. I'm not sure it would have stopped the stories saying I was kidnapped, but it might have helped. And at least my parents wouldn't have worried so much. I do regret that, although never the leaving."
Louisa was very quiet for a long moment. "What do you think I should do?" she asked.
"I think you should write them a letter," Dea said, her voice grim. "I can play scribe and take dictation if you don't know how; your parents can get someone to read it to them if they can't do it themselves. I think it's a lot safer to say goodbye in a letter. If nobody knows you're leaving until you're a few miles down the road, it's much harder for them to stop you."
"They're not going to stop me," Louisa protested. "Not once I explain."
"I think they will try." Dea caught her eyes and held them coldly with her slit-pupiled green gaze. Louisa would have shivered but she couldn't move. "I think that telling them you're leaving yourself, and why, even a little bit of why, is an idea that you will regret. But it's up to you."
She blinked, and Louisa—freed from her stare—took a shaky breath. "They're my parents. I'm going to tell them."
"Suit yourself," Dea said. "In that case, I'm going back to bed. You can take the night to pack, and tell your parents in the morning—if you haven't changed your mind by then—and if all goes well, we can leave early and start the journey to Klarns, or wherever you choose to go."
"I'm going to go to Klarns," Louisa said, "and my parents are going to wave goodbye when I do."
Dea's crooked smile said plainly that she doubted it, but she held her tongue still and kept her words behind her teeth. Everyone deserved to make their own choices—and mistakes—and part of being a dragon was in letting people do so. Part of being a faerie godmother meant offering only the help that was asked for; you could tell a person that you knew better than them, but you mustn't force it.
She left Louisa and returned to her small rented room. Dawn was still a few hours late, but after the dragon's nighttime visit Dea expected most of the village to sleep late. This time she undressed properly and settled in on the rustling straw mattress for a proper rest. She did not snore as she slept, but she did whistle a bit, like a small kettle left on the hearth to simmer.
Morning came suddenly with shouts and the sharp, scattering sound of breaking crockery. Dea sat up with a sigh and started to dress. Three guesses what precipitated that uproar, she thought cynically, and finger-combed her hair out of habit before she pulled her hood down and her scarf up to hide her scale-spotted face. Then she walked downstairs and, finding no one in the long low-ceilinged room (although there was a small puddle of milk cluttered with bits of broken clay on the floor near the kitchen curtain), she hitched her pack higher on her shoulders and went out the front door.
It didn't take long to find Louisa; all Dea had to do was follow the shouting. The girl had been dragged to the center of town by what were surely her parents. They looked worried, stricken. They each held Louisa by one arm while they spoke fearfully to what had to be a priest of some sort. (Dea had given up years ago on keeping track of human religions which seemed to her to be constantly splintering, restructuring, and re-naming themselves; it was enough to know that he was a religious official without knowing what sort of god or gods he served.) A crowd had gathered; it probably didn't take much to summon a crowd in Styesville. If it was anything like all the other small villages that Dea had encountered on her journeys then there wouldn't be much offered here in the way of entertainment other than personal drama and gossip about one's neighbors, so anything out of the ordinary attracted everyone's attention. She wouldn't be surprised to find the whole town come to watch the show if it went on another few minutes.
"I am not under any spell!" Louisa protested loudly. It sounded like something she'd already said a great many times today. "I told you, I'm the one casting the—well, it's not a spell exactly I suppose since I don't know how to cast it on purpose, but I am the one imagining the dragon!"
"My dear, dear child!" The priest was a pudgy fellow with wispy streaks of hair combed across a balding scalp. His pasty skin held the faded tan of a man who had once spent most of his time outdoors but now lived a sedentary, indoor life. He wore a robe woven of high-quality cloth that had been dyed a soft, almost sickly blue, like the sky right before a summer thunderstorm. It was edged with complicated embroidered patterns, probably sigils that held some significance to practitioners of whatever beliefs were common in Styesville. His eyes were watery green with fat, swollen pouches underneath. The way he flapped his hands made Dea think of the crows from yesterday, but of course while crows were coarse and mean they were also clever, and Dea didn't think anybody who used phrases like "my dear child" in earnest deserved the benefit of the doubt when it came to an assessment of their intelligence.
His next words did nothing to suggest she should change her mind: "No need to upset yourself; we'll sort this out don't you worry, lass. Just you hush yourself now and let your elders talk, eh?"
"You don't understand, I have to leave or else—"
"Hush, my dear! Just you be patient a moment and we'll have everything worked out." He waved his hand and two fellows with muscled arms and placid expressions that put one in mind of oxen more than anything else walked over and, not ungently, took hold of Louisa's arms while the priest drew her parents aside for a whispered conversation. Dea crept closer to listen, her sharp ears easily picking out his hurried words:
"We must have the wedding at once, I think—dragon or no dragon."
"The wedding?" Louisa's mother gasped. "Are you mad? My lass is sick or possessed; she needs medicine or an exorcism, not a marriage!"
"Ah!" said the priest, tapping his nose in a manner that he doubtless thought made him look sage, "The wedding wi
ll fix all of that, I think! Oh yes. It seems to me more likely that the poor girl is merely suffering jitters due to the delay of her marriage, and what she needs is—ahem—the guiding hand of a husband."
Louisa's father didn't look convinced but her mother was already nodding along, although with little enthusiasm. "I suppose you would know best…" the innkeeper said hesitantly.
"Quite, yes! This is the sort of thing I'm here for, my son; have faith in me and I'll see it all settled neat as you could want. We'll have to rush I'm afraid, no time to wait for ceremony if the dragon has already begun to ensorcel her. Go and fetch the lad and his family," he told Louisa's father confidently, "and I'll see to it that everything else needful is prepared."
Dea rolled her dragon-bright eyes and slipped away as a crowd started to gather in earnest.
The village was too small to muster an actual temple but there were rough wooden benches arranged in a semi-circle outside facing a stone altar on which flowers were currently being quickly piled by some of the village children. Louisa's mother waited at the door of the priest's cottage with one of the ox-like men; half offering a mother's support to a nervous bride and half acting as guard to keep the bewitched girl from escaping.
Dea ignored the cluster of activity around the door and benches and walked around to the back of the small building (noting with some approval that the shingles on this roof were scorched just like the rest of the town) where a high window let in light and air. It wasn't hard for a woman with dragon claws to climb the wooden slats and raise herself over the sill so she could see inside. She didn't even need to unwrap her wing-stubs for such a little height as this. Cottages, unsurprisingly, were easier to breech than towers, perhaps explaining why dragons generally preferred princesses to peasants: they liked a challenge. Being but an apprentice-dragon, Dea thought that starting with a cottage seemed an entirely sensible course of action, even if it wasn't likely to result in the sort of story her dragon-kin liked to listen to. Besides, she could hardly abandon Louisa now, regardless of the bardic potential her rescue did or did not offer.
