by Marc Secchia
“Uh … what? I’m not hungry.”
Affurion chuckled, “Come. Let her scent prey, my hatchlings. Then a Star Dragoness shall hunt, and dance, and fly!”
A shrill meeeh-hehh galvanised every muscle in her body. A buck! Drool!
Fiery draconic chuckles surrounded her as a sly paw snatched the offering from beneath her muzzle before Hualiama could snatch it with her talons. She sprang to her paws as though stung by a wasp. A group of perhaps three or four dozen hatchlings surrounded her or waited nearby, Dragons less than three years old, some already as much as forty feet in length. In their midst stood a dainty eastern four-horn buck, wide-eyed and trembling … Lia lunged instinctively, and came up with a pawful of fresh air.
Rending the beach sand with her talons, she rounded upon the Brown Elder. Dragons did not pout. They smoked. “What is this, noble Affurion?”
“A game. Your first hunt.”
“This looks more like a game of ‘bait the clumsy newborn’.”
“You must catch the buck,” he explained. “It is the job of your peers to draw you out, to teach you the speed and stealth and cunning a Dragoness requires in the hunt.”
Hualiama had a bad feeling this would mirror her basic training in the monastery, where she had spent weeks having the stuffing knocked out of her by a bevy of handsome young warriors. Nevertheless, if this was the game they meant to play … she eyed the tan buck with interest. Tasty. An Eastern variety of bush-springer, if she did not miss her mark. They could jump like grasshoppers, dodge on a brass dral and the hunters she knew swore they could smell an incoming arrow before it left the bow.
The hatchlings spread out, forming a loose ring around her, with a few in the middle to apparently encourage proceedings, or get in the way, or–right. How hard could this be?
Thump. She ate sand.
Whack. She ran into the flank of a grey Grunt hatchling.
Slap. A paw knocked her spinning.
A quarter-hour of fruitless chasing later, one pint-sized Dragoness was hot, bothered and decidedly irritable, besides not having come within ten feet of her alleged breakfast. Panting heavily, she surveyed the scene. Grandion’s smirk. Affurion’s encouraging nod. The hatchlings huddled together, plotting their next subterfuge. Her ire boiled, making her feel fevered and languid–clearly, not recovered yet from her ordeal. No. She was not graceless Hualiama any longer. She had defeated Ra’aba, the finest swordsman of Fra’anior Cluster, in single combat. She was a dancer, not a flat-pawed toddler-equivalent. She had a twenty-one year old brain in a hatchling’s body.
She must finish this quickly.
Help me, Human-Lia, she said to herself.
A dancer’s awareness soaked into her limbs. She tested the balance of her body, the play of her incredible Dragon musculature and reflexes. This was a body honed for hunting, for combat, for graceful flight, and she had never appreciated these facts as much as at this moment, for she had been too preoccupied with comparing her new Dragon-self to her more familiar Human form. Grandion had already spoken of knowing the potentials of her body–but there was a difference between knowing and knowing. Her strength had always been grounded in the intuitive realm, and in her ability to couple an engineer’s delight in detail and innovation with reliance on her instincts.
She crouched. Coiled like an angry cobra, hissing, Alright, Dragons, let’s play.
Hualiama shot across the ground. A dance-step took her around the Grunt’s shoulder and beneath a twenty-foot Overmind’s belly. He blinked as she blurred past. Leap! Twist! Her opening gambit brought her within a foot of the terrified buck before her teacher-tormentors snatched it away.
Whirling with a balancing flick of her wings, Hualiama stormed into the midst of the hatchlings, forcing them to toss the buck out of her path. A small Red caught the creature deftly before releasing it toward the outer circle. She sprinted across the ground, all four legs pumping in concert, but the buck escaped once more, with the help of two hatchlings who cut her off. A twelve-foot youngster would never be as strong and fast as her older peers. Still, she could be smarter. She could take advantage of a dancer’s fluid economy and precision.
Aye, she could dance.
Deep breath. Defy the pain. Go! Lia spun between three hatchlings as though they stood still. She rippled over a sweeping wing-stroke, burst through a group of Green Swarm without so much as brushing a single wingtip or paw, and used a Blue Overmind’s lashing tail-slam to slingshot her toward the buck. Stretch out a paw and–what? The buck flew!
She yelled, Affurion!
Fly, little one. Fly!
Cheat! Rage fuelled her skyward spring. Her wings pumped as she chased the flying animal between the rising hatchlings, her dance instantly transformed into aerial ballet, instilled with the beauty she had always strived for, the wonder of rising so lightly, not even gravity could constrain her soaring.
They could not touch her.
With a deft, dragonet-worthy spiralling somersault, Hualiama snagged the buck even as Affurion tried to slip it by her once more. Her landing was a hard thrust of the forepaw, breaking the animal’s neck instantly–the cleanest of kills. Then the Dragoness sank her fangs into the jugular, and tasted the rich, metallic tang of fresh kill-meat in her throat, and she remembered the Blooding and all she had learned. May she be nourished, and grow in all the lessons this new draconic life would teach her.
* * * *
Two further days they tarried with the Lost Islands Dragons, who poured into Hualiama every iota of lore and experience they possessed, until her head felt ready to burst like an overripe prekki-fruit, and she dreamed of the secret Dragon library beneath Ha’athior Island, where scroll-Dragons rose up to flay her hide as the Dragon-Haters did in order to armour their Dragonships.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, with Hualiama feeling much stronger, she and Grandion, together with Elki and Mizuki, made ready to depart Sarzun Dragonhold. Grandion did not want to test Azziala’s deadline of six days, and since there had been no sign of Siiyumiel’s return, there was no reason to tarry.
“You will fly the first two hours, minimum,” growled the Tourmaline. “By my wings, would you look at those ralti sheep goggling at your brother?”
All those Dragons ablaze with fury would be more accurate, Hualiama thought. No Dragon enjoyed the sight of a Human riding Dragonback in the apparently dominant position–even if it was the only sensible place for a Human Rider, it still rankled. Elki had explained the oath-bond, yet the idea was still clearly as curious as a purple-spotted windroc to these Dragons. Partnership with a Human? All they knew was centuries-old enmity.
“Two hours?” She flexed her wings enthusiastically.
“No less. And you will demonstrate perfect flying form, or the severest of punishments shall befall you.”
“Blast her with fireballs!” called Elki.
Mizuki extended her wings, rotating them to stretch and warm up the vital, highly flexible shoulder joint, where the primary wing-bones inserted into the socket, anchored by iron-hard ligaments and the huge flight-muscles of the pectoral and shoulder area. She added, “Bite her tail!”
“Haunches,” said her brother.
“Elki!” Hualiama shrilled, blushing up a petite firestorm.
“Right–concentrate on the angles and making smooth strokes. Don’t rush the wingbeat,” said Grandion, so dourly she knew immediately he was disguising his discomfiture.
“Wait!” Lia bounded over to Affurion, who was preoccupied with making the proverbial fisherman’s knot of not ogling Mizuki as she flexed in the bright suns-shine. “Affurion, I mean, noble Brown–”
Blue-star?
She paused, recalling how Dragons parted. I thank you for the gift of the Blooding, and all the knowledge you shared with me. May our claws, united, ever rend the enemy.
His brow-ridges crinkled, indicating pleasure. May it be so, noble Star Dragoness, o pride of Fra’anior.
Thank you, wing-elder.
&n
bsp; He lowered his muzzle with care, rubbing each side in turn against her muzzle, near the eyes. May you fly forever strong and true, wing-daughter.
They had not spoken of strategy, but Lia realised it must be in the forefront of his mind. She said, We will find a way, Affurion. Numistar Winterborn’s arrival will change the Balance. Times both troubling and glorious lie ahead. She paused. This was her voice, but where had those words sprung from? May white-fires safeguard your hearts.
Then she turned to Grandion. The Tourmaline gave a small nod.
Let’s burn the heavens! she cried, springing skyward.
By accident, her parting wing-stroke clipped the tip of Affurion’s nose, causing her to gust upward on the wings of a startled, fiery sneeze.
* * * *
“That was extremely rude,” Grandion reproved once they were out of earshot.
Hualiama pumped her wings hard to keep up. “I wasn’t intending to wing-slap a Dragon Elder. Islands’ sakes, can we slow down?”
“We’re already wallowing in the air.”
This earned the Tourmaline a belch of smoke that immediately whipped back over Hualiama’s eyes, making her blink and lose her form. “Faugh. Do I smell like that? Right … how’s this, Grandion?”
“Do you call that, ‘the flight of the drunken windroc’?” Elki called across from Mizuki’s back.
Grandion growled, “Keep your uneducated opinions to yourself, Human Prince! Mizuki. How shall we set about modifying this flapping mess?”
“Control of the wing-struts to cup them on the downward stroke, would be a good start,” she mused. “A narrower angle on the upstroke, Hualiama. You need to lessen the resistance, while actually providing uplift as you sweep the wing forward. You’re what Humans call an engineer, aren’t you? Like a Dragon scientist? Then observe the Tourmaline and simply copy what you see.”
Ooh. So simple. Dragonflight was supposed to be natural for Dragons, wasn’t it? Lords of the air, masters of the gulfs between Islands. A touch of instant mastery would be perfect. She sighed.
Accordingly, Grandion slowed his wingbeat, demonstrating the right form. “Good, Lia. Just at the nadir of the down-and-back movement, most Dragons rotate the shoulder and secondary wing-joint like this. No, more rotation. Don’t forget to splay the struts near your wingtip. You’re very ragged–better. Now you look like a Dragoness.”
This earned him a smirk-cross-pout. “Really, Grandion? What clued you in first–the wings?”
“All hatchlings are surly rascals,” he opined, chuckling agreeably. “The fine muscular control will improve with experience.”
A Dragon’s wing was furnished with literally thousands of ancillary muscles, mainly lining the primary wing-bones and wing-struts, allowing for superb control of the leathery, membranous surface. That level of control, however, sent masses of feedback to her brain, which struggled to process the flood of information. Fix the form of her wingtips, and the central struts sagged. Focus on one wing, and the other dragged. Where she floundered, the other two Dragons pulled ahead as smoothly as Helyon silk, adding tens of feet to their lead with every wingbeat. However, when she focussed on Grandion, Hualiama discovered an entirely unexpected benefit of their oath-connection. Because he was thinking about the mechanics of flying, that knowledge lay right on the surface of his mind, but so too each sensation. She spied on his mastery of the wind’s flow over his body, from his wingtips right down to the action of slitting his nostrils to reduce air friction. The exact coordination of the muscles. The perfect streamlined position for the body. Sneakily, she lifted that knowledge from his brain, and imbibed it like a dragonet diving into a cold waterfall on a sultry Fra’aniorian day.
This was the goal. This was synchronicity … abruptly, Hualiama felt that visceral ‘click’ she sometimes enjoyed when perfecting a dance-move. Every component part merged into an anonymous aggregate, rather than the muscles fighting each other for dominance and wings flapping in hopelessly opposed orientations. Wow! She slid through the air like a river trout swimming upstream. Not labouring–revelling. Laughter burbled in her throat as wind-song tickled her Dragon senses unbearably. She stretched. Accelerated! The thrill!
“Whooo … wheeee!” she yelled, blazing past Grandion before her left wing folded beneath an unexpected change in air pressure.
“Hualiama!” Elki yelled happily.
No mind. Lia turned an incipient stall into a barrel-roll and managed to glide smoothly onto the horizontal once more. “Smoking volcanoes! Grandion, did you see that? Did you?”
He performed a florid aerial bow. “Astounding.”
Mizuki just shook her muzzle. “How does she do it? One moment, an impressive imitation of a flying ralti sheep, the next, she’s flying like a Dragoness of ten years’ experience.”
Hualiama snarled at the sheep-reference.
Grandion laughed openly at Mizuki’s puzzlement. “It’s a Hualiama talent.”
Mmm. He was, without a shadow of a doubt, the handsomest Dragon in the entire Island-World.
Without the stress and confusion of labouring over all the technicalities, Hualiama found herself liberated to enjoy the fulfilment of a dream she had treasured all her life–the dream of flying. Oh, it was glorious. Beyond glorious. Her every Dragon sense lit up as though the suns shone within, their smiles chasing along the myriad magical pathways of her being, and the joy that welled from that gossamer tracery of liquid fire could not have been withheld, not even in the darkest season of her life. She spiralled away from the larger Dragons, her throat vibrating with notes of joy, her jubilant wingbeat bouncing her about like a dragonfly flitting over a lake, now carolling a Dragonsong of her hearts’ deepest magic, now throwing her head back to laugh or cry, she knew not which, nor did it matter.
She was flying! A Human girl, flying!
Nothing in her life could compare to this. Shackles, shattered. The simple, life-changing power of freedom. The beauty of airy spaces yielding to the supple play of her wings upon the warm breeze.
From pure, exuberant joy flowed dance; Hualiama began to vocalise the Soul Dance movement from the most famous dance-opera of all, known to both the Dragons and the Humans of Fra’anior–the Flame Cycle. She turned to perform a conductor’s introduction for Grandion, Mizuki and Elki, demanding their participation, before she danced ahead of them and around them until the day was old and her strength was spent, and Grandion directed their small Dragonwing to an Island at the very edge of the Buffer Zone, where a Dragon could look across the divide and see the dark, jagged rampart supporting the Human-controlled Islands.
Too wing-weary to move, the hatchling curled up, and fell asleep almost before her muzzle touched the ground.
Her dreams winged amongst the stars.
Chapter 6: Daughter of Rebellion
THe PRince of Fra’anior was not the lightest of sleepers. Ordinarily, Grandion too would have closed an ear-canal or three, but they slept adjacent to enemy territory. So the Tourmaline dozed with one eye slit-open in the manner of the Dragonkind, his hearing alert, and his magical awareness primed to detect any unusual sound or hint of danger on the breeze. For his part, the Prince snored indelicately.
Even so, the Dragon almost missed the moment she changed.
Magic, so delicate and fragile it blew across his scales like spiderweb dreams, brought a faint stirring to his consciousness. It was the change of pressure that triggered alarm. The Dragoness had vanished. Hualiama had returned, enfleshed in her customary Human form. Five feet tall. Slim and supple, yet possessing a notable muscularity that reminded him of nothing more than a Dragoness. Grandion stifled a groan, as did the girl. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes. How could she change again? His right forepaw curled silently into a fist. Traitor! Fickle female–yet, a Dragon’s judgement must not burn hastily. Patently, she had no control of the magic.
He must not be a fool. To seat a Dragon Rider seemed somehow tolerable in the eyes of the Dragonkind, akin to a moons-madness or eccent
ricity. To claim Humanlove, as he had bellowed at the Dragon’s Bell–that was a Dragon of another colour, a deadlier beast altogether.
So Grandion watched covertly as the Human girl rose into the dawn’s beneficent glow, her pale hair wreathing her body in an astonishing mass. She was thin, he fretted–too thin? Her scapulae protruded like wings budding beneath the skin. Perhaps Humans must also eat like Dragon hatchlings, enjoying the fat as much as the meat? All that plant matter they consumed could not be healthy.
She padded over to her brother, and frightened him into a witless, gibbering dragonet-hatchling.
“Lia? You’re … you? You’re you!”
“Aye,” she said. Her doleful whisper revealed much to a Dragon’s perception. “Will you be a dear brother and surrender your shirt?”
“Cloak? No, the shirt. Shirt’s better, even if it’s ripped, and a bit smelly. Mind, you’ll still look like the dawn over Fra’anior. This–oh, Lia, dear one, I’m so torn up inside for you. Does Grandion know?”
The white-fire head nodded once. “Aye.”
“And he–”
“He’s being noble-Grandion; treating me like a diamond, Elki. I’ve … Islands’ sakes, every time I start thinking about …” Her hand rose, wiping what had to be tears from her cheeks. The eavesdropping Dragon’s third heart turned to ice. “He’s so beautiful. So … I’m over the Islands for him, Elki. Hopelessly, forever, over the Islands. He’s changed, somehow, through all of this. He’s thoughtful and kind, tender and true, fierce and loyal–if anything, I love him more, every day and every moon.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” her brother lied, with a quiet chuckle.
“Aye, the very suns dawn in his eyes–all of that nonsense the balladeers spout–that’s me.”
The Prince helped her button up the shirt, before drawing her into his arms. “Silly waif. You need some serious fattening up. What happened? You’re healing properly? Promise?”
“Aye. Not dying anymore. Mostly.”
With a soft execration, he rubbed his eyes fiercely. “You’re far too stubborn for that … aren’t you, sister-petal? Priceless, infernal girl. Dragonship-wrecked your brother’s heart, you did.”
