by Serena Rose
If she noticed the extra effort I was putting into my stride, she said nothing, but continued her gentle explanation of how the dragons came to be and what the mountain once was like hundreds of years ago.
Apparently, the Queen was born in this smaller haven, only moving to the capital that I had become so familiar with when she was a mere fifty years old. She told me several stories about her childhood that seemed so impossible to imagine, considering the grand, elegant creature that she was now.
It was only in my peripheral vision that I noticed we were traveling not through the stone carved cityscape that I was used to, but instead a cavern that was growing more and more cave like in structure.
“Where are we?” I murmured, my voice echoing off the slick walls and dark spaces. “I don’t think we’ve been here before.”
“Because you haven’t. This is my palace.”
“Your palace?” I echoed. “Shouldn’t it be more, uh… building-y?”
“Perhaps, but I find myself more at home among the natural formation of our homes rather than the carefully sculpted architecture made for our two-legged forms. Unlike most of my children, I am more comfortable with my wings and scales, and I prefer a space that will allow me to accommodate that body.”
“Well, homes are supposed to be comfy, I suppose. Is there a reason why you prefer your dragon shape and younger shapeshifters don’t?”
“Perhaps it is the natural progression of our species. Perhaps we have lost some of what makes us, us. These are questions I often find myself pondering, but I have yet to find an answer.”
“Now you’re beginning to sound like me.”
“Or perhaps you have sounded like me all along.” Her slender fingers squeezed mine gently. “Sign of a good ruler.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. Once, quite long ago, my grandfather taught me of a woman who came to our lands. Her hair was as dark as a raven and her skin not unlike artfully tanned hide. She was not of this world, although she tried her hardest to appear to be.
“She said she was just seeing her handy work, making sure that things were following their own path to balance. She was quite upset when she learned of our recent losses and the increasing threat of the human royals. Something about this was not the journey we were supposed to be on.” Her lavender eyes slowly slid to me, and I saw curiosity settled there. “Was that you, Lady Mercedes?”
“Nope! Definitely not.” Her face seemed to become crestfallen and the next thing I knew, I was blurting something out before I could think about it. “But I think it might have been my grandmother.”
Her face brightened at that and she seemed intrigued. “Your grandmother, really? That is an interesting development. So, where do you come from then? I’m guessing not the Shimmering Isle.”
“No, not quite. It’s hard to explain but it’s someplace… different. Very different. There’s no magic there -- that we know of. Or mystical creatures. Just us humans and some animals.”
“That is difficult to comprehend.”
“I know what you mean. When I first was dropped here, I was sure that I was in some sort of drug-trip acid dream.”
“Perhaps you are.”
I jolted at that and gave the Queen and incredulous look. She simply just giggled, and I realized that she was messing with me. How strange. It weirded me out that she had a sense of humor. It was easier just to picture her as this mystical, ethereal ruler than someone more like… me.
“But dream or no, we are here.”
My attention returned to our surroundings, and I realized the dark, dripping walls of the cavern had suddenly disappeared, leaving a huge, open space full of all sorts of luminescent foliage.
My mouth dropped open as I took in the beautiful sight. A thick, luscious, grass like plant covered the uneven ground, spreading wall to wall in a gently glowing sprawl of light green. Trees, with dangling tendrils of gradient blue, dotted the opening, reflecting ethereally on the surface of the crystalline pool in the center of the arrangement.
“What is this place?” I murmured breathlessly, afraid my voice would somehow disrupt the clearly enchanted area and send it all crumbling into dust.
“Our holy place. This is where our ancestors once communed with the spirits that inhabited here.”
“It’s beautiful.”
The Queen smiled softly, the fungus and other organisms reflecting in her gaze. I had never seen her so relaxed, so unguarded. “It is, isn’t it? Most consider the Dragonfire temple to be the preferable place of worship. But to me, this has always been the place where I feel closest to what we once were.”
“I can understand why.” I took one last awe-struck look at the sprawling majesty before focusing. “So, what do we do now? Do I sacrifice a virgin? Offer my blood?”
“…what kind of world do you come from?”
I blushed. “It’s complicated.”
“I see.” She began to walk forward, and I followed after her. “Come to the pool with me.”
Like I had a choice, with my hand so solidly wrapped in hers. Granted, I knew she would let go and take me back home should I refuse whatever Hocus Pocus that was about to go down, but my curiosity and wonder were raging way too full-throttle for me not to see this through.
I felt a bit like a child being led to the water to go feed some ducks, but instead of cute, paddling birds waiting for us at the edge of the natural pool, there was just our own reflections.
“How do you feel about getting wet?”
“Is that what I have to do here?”
She nodded. “These are said to be tears of the mountain itself, not given in sorrow, but in joy of life. If there is anywhere you can commune with the great spirits, this would be it.”
“So, what do I do, just dive in or something?’
“No, not quite. Just wade in, see what your body tells you to do.”
That was decidedly vague, but I figured I would just float around for a bit. I doubted somewhat that anything was going to happen. As the Queen herself had said, there had been no contact with the entities that used to live here in centuries. Even Perin seemed to infer that the great spirits were no more, due to his machinations. I mean, I certainly wanted something to happen, because that meant there might be some power, some resource we could call upon that might wrest us further away from extinction, but the practical side of me was definitely advising to keep my hopes at a minimum.
And so, reverently, I slowly walked into the water.
CHAPTER THREE
It was deliciously cool, but not so low a temperature to induce shivers. As I waded in, I realized I hadn’t been swimming since… well since I almost drowned myself coming to this world. I missed it. The liquid was so soothing and luxurious as it lapped against me gently, as if nothing in the world could possibly be wrong.
More and more of my stress began to fade, until it felt like I was sifting through a pleasant dream rather than being actually awake. I was weightless, and happy, full of all sorts of warm fuzzies that made me want to sigh in contentment.
I reached the center and my toes just barely brushed the slippery-smooth bottom. Letting myself relax entirely, my body drifted upwards until I was floating effortlessly in the pool.
The Queen was saying something to me, but I couldn’t quite catch the words. It didn’t matter anyway. Everything I needed was here in the water. I could just stay here, forever, without want or need until I finally succumbed to old age.
Then warm, comforting tendrils of water began to gently caress at my back, beckoning me down deeper. I didn’t struggle as they wrapped around my limbs and middle, then began slowly pulling. And, why should I? I couldn’t think of anything nicer e than them surrounding me in the refreshing wellspring for all eternity.
I sighed, and a greenish smoke rolled out of my mouth, filling the air around my body. It took me a moment to absently realize that it was the Dragonfire that I had inhaled so long ago. Had that been in me the entire time?
That was certainly interesting.
I giggled slightly as my thoughts supplied a half-wit pun about heartburn, and that was the last sound I made before liquid filled my mouth and I sank below the surface. Some fractured part of my mind knew that this was very much not a good thing, and that I should be fighting drowning, but I didn’t feel all that concerned. I knew I was safe and protected. This water would never harm me.
I reached the bottom, laying still and serene as the water rippled my vision. Above the surface I saw a shadow, then a flash of color and then another, before a clawed foot reached down towards me.
The water rocketed me upward, and when I reached the air I was gently plucked from the liquid and set into the pseudo-grass.
I breathed deeply, calmly, then rolled to my front to see a massive dragon standing beside me.
It was big. Bigger than the Queen even, and several times over at that. It had sparkling, turquoise scales and large black eyes that regarded me with a pleasant sort of curiosity.
“Hello,” I whispered, beginning to feel more like myself and less like a happy hippy on a drug trip.
Greetings child, it answered without answering at all. How was I hearing it? There was no noise, no words that came out of its mouth, and yet I heard what it meant loud and clear. I have been waiting for you to stumble across us.
“You… you’ve been waiting for me?”
Perhaps not in a literal sense. We reside here, whether you seek us or not. But we could not help but notice the shimmering burst of light that has been roaming our bones so freely.
“You’re the great spirit?” I asked, somewhat surprised that this had all been so easy. “The one that opened the mountains for the dragons?”
We are not… one spirit. Not that one either. We are many? Perhaps. We are mostly echoes…weak. Always weak.
“Oh, um…okay then. So, you’re not the spirit then?”
Yes. And no. Who can say what we once were, but merely what we are now.
“And what are you now?”
We are… here.
“Yeah. I got that. That’s not really what I meant.”
Perhaps the question should be why are you here?
“Yeah, I guess that’s a good place to start, then.” The last of the cobwebs cleared from my mind and I felt my task rushing back to me. “Your people are dying, Mr. Dragon, uh, Sir. There are less than a few handfuls of you left and the humans are dedicated to bringing you down. The Queen, Malaika, hoped that maybe I could meet with you and you would have some sort of secret that could save us.”
Secrets? Secrets are cold, biting little rocks of knowledge that burn to the touch. That made about as much sense as a fortune cookie, but I didn’t exactly critique its delivery. We know nothing of secrets. Only of… quiet. So much quiet.
Once we spoke to our children often. We were as numerous as the stars and moved throughout the rocks and boulders, swam through the waters and danced through the ore. But then… we faded. Our children spoke to us less and less, and we grew quiet in their silence.
Now, we are hardly here. Perhaps we are not here at all. It is hard to tell in so many years of sleep.
“So, your power faded as the dragons grew weaker and smaller in number?”
Such a simple deduction for such a complex surrender.
“I know that maybe you haven’t talked to anyone in a few millennia, but you’re not making a whole lot of sense here.”
Then consider that your narrowly defined sense is too confining to discover the answers which you speak.
I let out a grumble. I hadn’t meant to get short with the massive beast that was in front of me, but it was just stringing along words that sounded mildly related to each other rather than anything even mildly understandable.
“How is that even supposed to be helpful? Do you guys really want your first conversation with someone in generations to be more riddle than reason?”
Riddle you say? We know a riddle of a girl from nowhere who saves all of us here. With hair of the night , and dreams of the day, she walks among those who cannot be real and yet are.
“Are… are you talking about me?”
She spits at her own, and strikes down the greedy. With two lives within her, she bows neither way.
“What does that mean? Is that me? Isn’t it?”
Is it?
My eyes rolled so far back I was worried they might get lodged in my skull. “What’s with the answering questions with questions say? Isn’t that passé at a certain point?”
It held out it’s shimmering, perfect hands, black talons easily the size of my entire palm.
Time is not how you perceive, and therein lies the answer. We can show you, should you trust us.
“Trust you? I don’t even know who you are. You haven’t given a solid answer to a question since we’ve met.”
The choice is yours.
“This is ridiculous.” I stared at the offered limb before sighing and placing my hand between the three taloned fingers. As soon as we made contact, I was rushing out of the strange place we were in and across time and space. Everything swirled into nothingness, and then I couldn’t see anything at all. I didn’t have time to panic, or scream, because then I was being dragged back towards a swirling miasma of color…
I arrived in an elaborate room, everything covered with saturated colors of expensive fabrics. A lush bed dominated the center of the room, and I saw a vanity as well as several seats upon which to recline. I had never been here before, and yet it had a vague familiarity to it that tugged at my mind insistently.
I looked around, the dragon that I had just been talking to nowhere to be seen. But what I could discern was my rounded, protruding middle.
“Oh.” I murmured, my voice lilting and echoing like a dream. Was this a dream? Or was this real? I could feel and taste and sense and touch, but there was a halfhearted sort of echoing sigh to everything. Like an afterthought that went on a bit too long before fading into nothingness.
My hands went to either side of my bulging tummy and I marveled at how warm it was. I was naturally a fairly cool person, so feeling my skin so heated to the touch was distinctly mesmerizing. It was there, with my fingers gently exploring, that I felt a responding thump from within me.
I yelped before a giddy sort of laugh escaped my throat. It had kicked! My baby had kicked. I stood there, in utter wonder as the being inside of me stretched and pawed around.
The door opened and I looked to see Gael enter, glowing with a vibrancy that could only come from pure joy. Potential fatherhood seemed to serve him well, from the top of his golden crowned head to the soles of his feet, he radiated confidence and contentment. I found myself echoing his expansive smile before he strode forward and swept me up in one of his spinning hugs.
“Careful! You remember what happened the last time you whirled her too much.”
My eyes widened as Myrik slipped through the door as well, still decked in his dark robes but minus his normally surly expression.
“I know how to treat our mate.”
Wait. “Our” mate? Had I really just heard that?
“You say as much, and yet I distinctly remember her violently vomiting into a chamber pot.”
My stomach churned at the imagery. “Hey, could we not talk about any sort of upchuck right about now? Or ever?”
“Of course!” Gael said, setting me down and pressing a tender kiss to my forehead. “Anything for my queen.”
Then, just as suddenly as it had burst into being, the room snapped out of existence. I was standing in the strange holy place with the turquoise dragon again, breathless. But, before I could ask a question, or even begin to think of which question I wanted to ask, we were spiraling off again.
This time I arrived in a similar room, but in open air, a breeze billowing the azure curtains. But that wasn’t right. All of the dragon kingdom was safely housed within the mountains. The only rushing breezes that came through were channeled through the upper layers of the cav
e, and they never billowed at all.
A cloying cry ripped through the blissful moment, and I whirled fast enough to give myself whiplash, alarm flooding every bit of my system. Without thinking, I ran over to the source of the appalling sound where I found two babies neatly swaddled in a very old-fashioned crib.
I didn’t need an explanation to know they were mine. They were paler, but their complexions held that tell-tale gold and coral that ran so strongly in my family. One was practically bald, with big blue eyes and cheeks that I wanted to pinch more than anything else in my life, and the other had a thick shock of black hair with eyes that were so similar to mine that it was like looking into a tiny mirror.
Instantly my heart shattered into a thousand pieces, then reassembled itself bigger than ever. My children. My precious children.
I pulled them to my bosom, crying and laughing. If I thought I had felt joy in the previous scene, it was doubled over now. Bubbling, rushing, soaking every inch of me in pure happiness.
What were their names? What were they like? Did they sleep well every night or were they naughty little boys?
“I thought Dwyllverys had you on bedrest.”
My eyes flicked to the door to see Myrik standing there, looking content as his gaze roved over me.
“As if anything could keep her from our sons.” Gael said, pushing past his dark-haired rival.
There was that word again. ‘Our’. Were they saying what I was thinking that they were saying?
“It was your child who was crying,” Myrik answered back. “Its clear dramatics are hereditary.”
“And your son says nothing but watches everything. Obviously, he’s already plotting.”
“Of course, he is. He takes after his father, after all.”
I stood there, a bit in shock from it all. Was this reality? Was whatever this vision was trying to tell me that I was going to bear children to both dragons? I supposed it was possible. Delayed egg release and what not. I had heard of women getting pregnant while they were pregnant, but it had been in some obscure ‘did you know’ article. Those things didn’t happen to real people!
