Dragonlove

by Marc Secchia

  A tranquil harbour in the inferno, she invited the other presence into her soul. Be mine. Be me.

  All became white. All was glorious.

  * * * *

  It seemed that the Islands danced upon their foundations.

  Starlight, so pure and penetrating that a Dragon’s secondary nictitating membranes could not protect against it, bloomed before the stupefied Orange Dragon as though a bud unfurled its petals. Every Dragon present had to shield their eyes, even semi-blind Grandion. He looked with the eyes of magic. Even he could not gaze into a star’s dazzling heart.

  A fledgling’s Dragon fire easily reached furnace temperatures. An adult Blue male could produce lightning in excess of thirty thousand degrees. The fire that burned where Hualiama had stood–he had no words. It lapped gently over Razzior and Andarraz, and they were gone. Tarbazzan had reaction speed enough to half-turn before the light engulfed him. Grandion blinked. Obliterated. Between one pulse of his hearts and the next, the Dragons surrounding Hualiama and even those crushing him beneath their flesh-mountain, evaporated into the mystical starlight. He could not even detect a vapour-trail. They had not been teleported–that mythical ability of the Ancient Dragons. Only the tip of Tarbazzan’s tail remained, lopped off with surgical precision. It twitched one last time as though even dead flesh sought to convey that the impossible had just transpired.

  This was magic to blast a Dragon off his paws.

  Filaments threaded the receding light, tracing a design of wing-shivering beauty, now solidifying into a creature which cast no shadow. Could it be? Grandion’s intuition insisted that such indescribable magic should split the skies with the peals of its thunder, or raise volcanoes from the deeps. It should hurl stars about like the fires of first creation. But this creature was she, the transcendent purity of starlight, and the incarnation of feminine innocence. She shone, and no evil could stand against.

  His nostrils twitched. That smell–oh, a beguiling, well-remembered smell! The huge Tourmaline Dragon stumbled forward, flaring his nostrils in shock.

  He purred, Who are you, little one?

  * * * *

  When her vision cleared, Hualiama found herself standing opposite the Tourmaline Dragon. He crouched ten feet away, gaping at her with quite the most befuddled expression. Her eyes blinked twice, oddly. A queer grin displayed his fangs. Who are you? His ardent growl flustered her senses most delightfully.

  She stammered, “Grandion, w-why are y-you looking at me like that?”

  He haplessly imitated a ralti sheep chewing a mouthful of grass.

  Fuelled by the unexpected heat roiling in her belly, an irritable edge entered her voice. “It’s only me–Hualiama, chief trouble-stirrer. Where’s Razzior? What just happened?”

  “Hualiama?”

  Still the weird, discomfiting purr! “Grandion, who else …”

  Her voice choked off as she took in the expressions of the watching Dragons, those who had not joined Razzior in trying to burn her. Her neck twizzled. Lia blinked as her strangely inflamed eyes wallowed in impossibly magnified details, or sped to a wide view that included Sapphurion to her right side, gazing at her with unguarded wonder. Her mind felt fragmented, filled with thoughts not her own. Cascades of sight and sound and smells sluiced over her senses.

  She snatched at the threads of normalcy. “Sapphurion, you tell … um, aren’t you dead?”

  Sapphurion lowered his muzzle and raised his wings half-aloft, a gesture of the utmost draconic respect. She is born! he bugled, so powerfully that the sound carried beyond the mountaintop and across the Cloudlands. Hualiama froze. Frissons of Dragonsong frolicked along her spine. She breathes! She burns!

  Movement rippled around the watching Dragons. In twos and threes they stooped and raised their wings aloft, even Grandion–even her Dragon! The Tourmaline bowed regally, causing a buzzing in her ears and a disconcerting expansion in her senses, driving inward and lapping outward simultaneously. First the Land Dragon, now the Lesser Dragons? No right-minded Dragon would dream of abasing themselves before a Human, not even Grandion. Why her? What by any of the five moons did this mean?

  Here came Mizuki. The Copper Dragoness bowed aerially before putting down neatly not fifty feet from Grandion’s left flank. Sapphurion, the mighty Dragon Elder, held his genuflection, his eyes more effulgent than she had ever seen.

  So fragile the moment, it trembled upon the cusp of glory.

  “What’re you Dragons doing?” Lia’s voice joined the plaintive wind. “Please, I’m not worthy. I don’t understand. Grandion … help …”

  Panicked, she tried to run. Hualiama tumbled over her paws and landed flat on her overlong muzzle.

  Oh no!

  She writhed to her feet–to her paws–with a horrified squeak. Normalcy? What Island of insanity was this? “No. I have … mercy! I’m a Dragon? I’m a Dragon!” She hissed with pain as her injured wing flared. Lia almost knotted her neck looking at herself, wild of eye. “No!” She raised a paw. Stared at a wingtip bunting her nose. “This is cosmic madness. I’m Human. No wings, definitely no scales. Islands’ sakes, I’m burning.” Flames licked around her muzzle. Dazed, she muttered, “Why am I burning?”

  Sapphurion rumbled, “That’s Dragon fire, my shell-daughter.”

  As one beast, the Dragons broke into glorious Dragonsong:

  She breathes! She burns!

  The Dragonsong of living fire,

  Blessed eggling, born to fly.

  Lia’s heartbeat thrashed in her stomach and up in her throat and there was fire, so much fire … their song rose over the crazy-fast rushing of blood in her ears, the words changing to an ancient Dragonish dialect that spoke of the quickening of a Dragon’s fire-soul, distilled from the infernos of creation … and now she was burning, burning up, until nothing remained of her but fire-soul.

  Dimly, she heard the Dragon Elder add, “Your fires do the Island-World honour, Star Dragon.”

  * * * *

  Grandion lunged forward to pluck up the hatchling Dragoness as she sagged. Gently, little one, he soothed. Oh, hatchling-sweetness! How protectively his paw cupped her tiny body! A Dragon-instinct made her curl up on his palm, her tail first slapping her shoulder before settling down.

  The Tourmaline growled, Lia? Is it you, Hualiama?

  D-Do you c-call dead Dragons, Star D-Dragons? Oh mercy, what’s happening to me … everything feels so peculiar …

  He crooned, Fold your wings like this, little one. Gentle your fires. You need to find your paws.

  G-Grandion … I’m a … how? I’m a Dragoness, aren’t I? Aren’t I, Grandion?

  A tremor ran the length of his long throat. You’re perfect.

  The Dragoness’ hearts sped along at a terrific rate, giving her posture a quivering, kittenish appearance. Grandion wished he knew what to say to calm her. How could he express the Dragonsong thrilling his hearts? This, he could never have imagined, not in a million summers. He feared to release this treasure lest Lia disappear to wherever she had been hiding her Dragoness before, or worse, might she return to her Human form? He yearned to twine necks with her, to fly over mountaintops and show her the wonders of the Island-World. The strength of his emotions staggered the Tourmaline Dragon. The Human girl had chosen to be cremated, to die for him. No living creature could have endured the fires Razzior had blasted at her.

  His senses rode the breeze. Aye, all of Razzior’s fire had been extinguished. Not even the bones remained.

  Breathlessly, the Dragoness sang from his paw:

  I’m scared, I burn, o Dragon please tell me,

  How do you love a fire?

  Every scale upon his body trumpeted its delighted recognition. He bugled back:

  You become the fire.

  Even his dim vision conveyed the brilliance of her eyes. Had that exchange been prophetic? Had his hearts known all along … no. Surely, the mystery of draconic magic could not transcend the bounds of belief by such a margin. Yet here she was. Dragoness. Sta
r Dragon. He quivered, awestruck. Impulsively, Grandion dipped his muzzle to scent the little mite, missing his mark to snuffle around her haunches. Oh the beauteous, complex aroma–he snorted with laughter as Lia cuffed him across the nose, open-clawed.

  G-G-Grandion, that’s so inappropriate! Get off me!

  Had he any doubt, it flew off the Island at her oh-so-Hualiama response.

  Feisty little beauty, isn’t she? Sapphurion grinned, pushing closer to Grandion to look her over. His talons curled jealously.

  Her eyes were wells of the deepest blue, and her eye-fires swirled wildly as she regarded the Tourmaline Dragon with a coy tilt of her head. The Dragoness was flawless. Twelve tiny feet of draconic radiance. He stroked her spine-spikes with a gentle claw-tip. So soft, so pliable. Her scales were the blue of a late evening sky, with a slight sprinkling of white which reminded him of stardust. His free paw closed over her back, forming a womblike space in which her petite fires purred away, a vibration that transformed his belly into a trembling, molten lava-pit of passion and fiery joy.

  In every respect, Hualiama surpassed his wildest imaginings. Dreams he had never believed, now stood incarnated in Dragon claw and wing, and in the embodiment of a newborn fire-soul–an undeniable, triumphant truth. A miracle.

  “What have you done with my sister, you bunch of overgrown armoured Islands?” Elki shrilled nearby. The Prince of Fra’anior bowed curtly as Mizuki shouldered a space clear for him. “Thanks. Listen, I’m Elka’anor, Prince of Fra’anior and Dragon Rider. You. Blue Dragon.”

  Grandion and Sapphurion raised their muzzles in identically imperious gestures. “Aye?”

  “Where’s my sister?” He measured her height with his hand. “Human. About this tall. Cute, but has a dragonet’s penchant for mischief. What was that white fire? Where’d Razzior go?”

  Sapphurion began to whisper to Hualiama, but Grandion stilled him with an upraised talon. “Allow me, shell-father. Noble Prince, may I present your sister? Dragoness. About this tall.” He illustrated with his talons. “Cute, but has a dragonet’s penchant for mischief.”

  Elki’s scowl mellowed as he considered the contents of Grandion’s outstretched paw. “Exceptionally cute, I’ll grant. But I was looking for a … a rather less scaly version of my–”

  The Dragoness’ smile flashed a mouthful of fangs like needles made of milky quartz. “Elki, you stork-legged excuse for a snivelling princeling, you had a pet parakeet named Flame-Head when you were eight. Don’t you know a bit of short shrift when you see it?”

  “No. N-N-No!” The Prince paled. “You aren’t–you are–oooh …”

  * * * *

  “Catch him!” Hualiama yelped.

  She sprang twenty feet past Elki in a single bound. Lia whirled, snapping and snorting, jarring her broken wing.

  Grandion hulked opposite, apparently quite unaware of her brother’s inelegant sprawl. He rumbled, “If you can stun a Human with a smile, you’re definitely all Dragoness.”

  Human-Lia wanted to smack him. Dragon-Lia wanted to do things with a sexy Tourmaline Dragon that–well, she wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted to do with him just yet–but they definitely weren’t ideas any sane girl should have in her head as she practically dribbled fire over her Dragon. She clacked her fangs together with a dangerous snarl. Ooh, this was freaky. Two sets of feelings warred within her. A touch of Human made her begin to conceal her nudity, while the Dragoness reminded her that she was covered in armoured Dragon hide. Dragon-Lia salivated over every detail of Grandion’s chunky physique. Yum. Human-Lia tried to figure out what she’d do with her blades, now that she had no waist for a sword belt.

  Was this other-Hualiama’s surprise? Rascally dragonet! She’d have words with herself–schizophrenic madwoman or none. Which was the real Hualiama? Both? Would she sleep as a Dragoness, and wake in her true Human form again? Her belly bubbled like an overheated cauldron at the thought.

  Before the Island-World reverted to sanity and order, there was one thing she needed to do.

  She purred, “Well, Grandion, just wait until I smile at you.”

  The Dragon stalked her with a lithe rippling of musculature, arching his wings in a way that she recognised as a draconic courtship ritual. Majestic as his pose might be, it was the song of his hearts that she ached for, that every fibre of her being willed him to reveal. How he loomed over her, tenderness enwrapped in fiery power, his nobility trembling the Islands of her world.

  Barely could she breathe in anticipation of the words rising within her Dragonlove.

  Hualiama of Fra’anior, you are the breath of this Dragon’s fire-soul. He wafted his flame gently against her muzzle. Cinnamon. Sulphur. She breathed in tangy notes of iron mingled with the subtle allure of jasmine and vanilla; a heady artist’s palette of draconic scents which communicated the depths of his need and desire for her. I love thee from the ends of the Island-World to the farthest stars that grace the heavens. Your greatest secret was foretold in your name, for truly you are Hualiama, the song of the Eastern star. May the Spirits of the Ancient Dragons bear witness to the fire-promises of my third heart.

  A draconic fire-promise! Somewhere, a Human girl was leaping and spinning, dancing and screaming with elation.

  Grandion’s flanks heaved, his voice grown solemn and throaty as the deepest furnaces of his feelings opened to her awareness. I give gladly of my soul’s veriest fires to thee, Star Dragoness, and may eternity smile upon us. Hualiama, thou art my Dragonlove.

  Dragon-Lia’s fire caressed his muzzle. She whispered, And thou, mine.

  Today, the enchantment over the Isles was love.

  Chapter 37: Requiem

  SLIDING A TALON beneath her chin, Sapphurion raised Lia’s muzzle. “An Island’s-weight of diamonds for your thoughts, melancholy Dragoness?”

  “Will you be alright, shell-father? You must miss Qualiana.”

  “Alright? No.” Sighing heavily, the huge Blue stooped to turn his burning eye upon her. “I’ve … it’s like I lost a wing. I fear my fires will never burn again. Little one–”

  “Why couldn’t I heal her? Why?” The pain behind her breastbone pierced her hearts as surely as if she’d swallowed an Immadian forked dagger. Hualiama stared unseeing at Grandion, returned from negotiating with the Lost Islands Dragons. She knew he listened, even though he spoke with Mizuki as Elki worked on bandaging Saori’s wounds with strips torn off his shirt. “Sapphurion, I failed you. I’m so sorry.”

  “Failed?” he thundered, then tempered his tone. “You did not fail. Even a Star Dragon’s power cannot raise the dead. Her soul had flown, little one.”

  “You came back.”

  “Star Dragons restore balance in the Island-World. I cannot instruct you as your shell-mother could, but I know a smattering of lore. You healed me while my fire-soul yet dwelled in my flesh. There are many paths of healing. Star Dragons bring imbalance back into equilibrium. My Qualiana was a prodigy in physical healing, but her powers also extended beyond our physical realm into the treatment of magical diseases.”

  A Dragon could hear grief. Smell it. Taste it on her tongue. In the midst of her staggeringly expanded awareness, Hualiama still clung to her old stubbornness. “No, it can’t be true,” she insisted, drawing a deep, forlorn chuckle from him. “I didn’t manage to heal myself, did I?”

  Sapphurion touched her flank with his knuckle. Lia could but marvel at the sensations a simple touch conveyed to her Dragon senses. “You must accept the truth of what is. Healing oneself is always the hardest. I’ll be grateful for every breath I take beyond this day. But I grieve, Dragonfriend. She was … so …”

  “She was your Dragonlove.”

  “Aye.” His muzzle turned to the sky, shaking slowly. He had been unable to speak as Dragon after Dragon came to welcome the Star Dragoness to the fires of draconic life, or to add a seal of their fire to Hualiama’s and Grandion’s fire-promises. “Ask your question lest it burn more than your tongue.”

  He kn
ew? “Noble shell-father, how can I accept this truth? This … Dragoness?”

  “What do you mean, little one?”

  Cold winds blew over the Islands. She kept expecting to fade into morning, to wake from the dream. How could she trouble him with her paltry grief, when he had lost his soul-mate? Bitterly, Lia said, “My mother and father are dead. How can I become a Dragon? Dreams don’t come true for girls like me. They just … don’t.”

  “Never say that, little one,” he whispered. His paw drew her against his great muzzle, although it was he who shook more than she did at the mingling of their emotions. “Never think it, for untruth is dark-fires to our kind. You’re still that little sprite I held in my paw. Clothed in a different raiment of beauty, aye. But the fundamental spirit, the essence of Hualiama, remains unchanged. We’ll help you learn to fly. We’ll believe with you. Every wingbeat. One day, you’ll wake to the knowledge that you’ve flown beyond your eggling dreams.”

  Kindness to cut to the living pith of a person.

  “But it’s all wrong!” she burst out, spitting fire unexpectedly. “If I’m a Dragon, how come I’m so tiny? Islands’ sakes, I can curl up in your paw. I must be a tenth of your size!”

  “You’re a hatchling. Just the right size.”

  “I’m not a hatchling! I’m twenty-one years old. Sapphurion, this is ridiculous. I’m a Dragon and I still can’t have him.” The great Blue quirked an eye-ridge at her. Of course he didn’t understand. Cringing at her selfishness, Lia muttered, “I wanted to–you know, I imagined I could be with Grandion …”

  “Oh?” One syllable, and the Blue Dragon had his shell-son’s belly fires howling with embarrassment. “Give it a few years. Little Dragonesses grow into–”

  “I don’t want to wait.”

  “ENOUGH!”

  Azziala! Every Dragon gasped. Elki leaped to his feet, fumbling for his sword.

  “Oh, don’t bother with that.” Azziala surveyed them from her perch on a rock not thirty feet from Lia’s left flank, her face bloodied and burned, yet her eyes still blazed with that unnerving blue. “Touching as you seem to think this revolting spectacle is–Dragon, obey! Roll over.”