Win looked up. “No?”
“Of course not.” Ivy laughed. “The only reason people were freaked out was because they thought there was some kind of giant monster dragon up here.”
Like a light had switched off, Win's eyes flickered down and out of focus. Ivy ducked, trying to meet her gaze, but Win turned and stared out towards the valley. Frowning, Ivy looked down to the dragon in Win's lap. Its wings were stretched wide as if to catch the sun, and Ivy watched in awe as light swirled lazily beneath the leathery skin. When Win spoke, Ivy startled as if caught seeing something she shouldn't.
“I just don't think it's in the cards for me right now.”
She wanted to ask. She wanted to ask a lot of things, but caught the words on her lips before she could undo any more of their progress. Instead, she settled for a nod, shifting back to sit side-by-side. “You're wrong about one thing, though.”
Win still didn't meet her eyes. “Oh yeah? What?”
“I'm not here just to brainwash you into a cult.” Win raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I'm not here to do that at all, obviously. But, even if it weren't for the Center—”
“You're saying you'd be bugging me no matter what?”
“'fraid so.”
Win sighed, sipping her cold-again tea. “We all have our burdens to bear.”
* * *
Win sat on her back stoop, savagely chewing the end of a yew wand, forehead creased in thought. On the horizon, dirty gray clouds crept across the skyline. Another day, Win might've scowled and chased them away, taking out her itchy-hot frustrations on the water droplets until they dissipated into the air. She probably should, but today they seemed too fitting for Win to remove them. Nearby, the clack-clack of tiny claws against the floor made her jump. She grabbed for the whittling knife and block of misshapen wood she'd abandoned, letting the wand disappear into the grass. Just as well, she thought. It'd probably liquefy the bones in my arm if I tried using it now.
“What's up, Jules?” she asked the sapphire-blue dragon who stood at her knee, flicking his tongue curiously. “Enjoying the peace and quiet?”
She dragged the dull knife against the wood.
“Yeah, it feels like forever since we've had a day where that girl's not banging our door down, huh?”
The dragon blinked and tilted his head.
“I know,” she continued. “Finally, I can hear myself think without the incessant blabbering about … waffles made of kale, and everyone loving each other or whatever.”
Striking the block hard, she wedged the knife into the wood. She yanked at it to wriggle it loose.
“Bit out of practice, aren't I? That's okay. Perfect way to enjoy our peace and quiet.”
“Ee ah eye-et,” the dragon parroted, swishing his tail.
Win glared.
* * *
“The thing is, at this point it's just rude.”
Win paced back and forth from the kitchen to the living room, heavy boots clomping against the floor.
“I was counting on her help with all these projects. I mean, she was practically throwing herself at me to help, and then she just up and disappears for days without a word?” She put her hands on her hips, scoffing. “I wouldn't even want her to come back now. If she does, I'm not letting her in, and no amount of moony eyes from you is going to stop me.” She stopped to point an accusing finger at Princess Emmie.
From the front of the house, a clatter sounded. Win whipped towards the door. However, instead of a girl with overly energetic hair, she saw two dragons standing around a broken flower pot, ducking their heads sheepishly. She turned back and caught Princess Emmie watching her. “Oh, shut up.”
* * *
Win looked down at her wood block, trying to remember what she'd been trying to carve.
“It looks like a depressed eggplant,” Win said, quite accurately. “Ivy'd probably love it.” She tossed it onto the pile of unfortunate wooden vegetables beside her.
The sky was overcast, hanging low and soppy, and Win felt listless under it.
Tiny grunts and rustling sounded behind her, and she cast a sidelong glance at the lanky, opal-scaled dragon dragging a worn plaid work shirt out to the edge of the step. She dropped it in a heap and circled over it several times, plucking it with her claws and curling up in the middle of the makeshift nest.
Win cleared her throat and looked away. “There's no need to be so melodramatic, Mistress Moonbeam.”
* * *
Early the next morning, Win crashed through the house, grabbing for spare amulets and digging through the cupboard for her second rubber boot. Around the house, dragons blinked open bleary eyes, some following her in groggy curiosity.
“All right, you all are driving me up the wall,” she announced, winding a chunky knit scarf around her neck until it hid half her face, “so I'm going down to find out what happened to that girl you got so attached to. Hopefully her Center hasn't taken her as a human sacrifice.” Stomping through the doorway, she stopped to poke her head back inside. “I hope that for your sake.”
Hunching like a turtle in its shell, Win trudged down the hill and onto the main road on the outskirts of town. It was drizzling in fits and starts like a leaky roof. Grimacing as the cool water slid down her hair, she already wondered what had possessed her to leave her house.
Looking up, she saw a figure bicycling towards her, a smudge of loud colors between the gray road and the grayer sky. An uninvited thrill danced in her stomach. “Ivy?”
As they drew closer, a shaft of light fell through the clouds between them, illuminating both of their faces. The silver-haired man on the bicycle swerved wildly, bespectacled eyes round as radishes as they locked on Win. Sighing, she mumbled a few words and flicked a finger out. A spark shot and rippled through the air, and man and bicycle were steered away just before driving into a drainage ditch.
“Hey, do you know where I can find this girl Ivy?” she called, trying to remain at least twenty feet from the man. “You probably know her. She has brown curly hair and this super annoying thing where she smiles constantly?”
“Ivy?” the man repeated, blinking in surprise. “Course I know her. I changed a few of her diapers when she was just a tot.”
Win growled into her scarf until raindrops began to vaporize as they hit her head. “Well that's a nice memory, but it doesn't really help me find her now, does it?”
“S'pose not,” the man agreed, scratching his bald spot. “She's a difficult one to pin down on a good day, but now she's runnin' herself ragged gettin' everyone ready for the storm.”
“What storm?”
As she said it, a gust of wind blew between them, and Win froze. On the surface, it was humid and heavy, but underneath it had a flavor, a scent. One Win knew well.
“Water magic,” she murmured.
She hadn't noticed it. How could she have missed it? Close enough to stretch its tentacles under her nose, and she hadn't noticed it.
Vaguely, she heard the man chattering about his tomato plants. She tuned him out and concentrated on the magic in the atmosphere, following the trail back to its source. It was mortifying how little effort it took once she quieted her tangled thoughts. Beyond the valley and hills, swelling clouds and currents of orphaned water magic drifted towards each other, colliding, sparking, no one bothering to control them. No one bothering to clean up their mess. It was a garbage heap, the air suffused with more water magic than it could absorb. Left alone, the energy festered, lost and angry, wandering blind. It fed on itself, disparate threads weaving into a whirling blur, faster and faster. Distantly, she felt the scrape of the road on her knees as she dropped, an unfamiliar hand gripping her shoulder. They were faint voices lost in the roar of magic, pushing and pulling her. It was all she could smell and taste, drowning her in it. She gasped, and for a second she thought she felt her lungs flood with water, until she realized she was choking on the foulest odor she had ever encountered.
“Ack—blegh!” Win sputtered, snap
ping back into her body and recoiling from the source of the stench. She buried her nose and mouth in her scarf, glaring watery eyes at the wrinkly brown fruit the bicycle man had thought it wise to shove under her nose. Win wondered if she should have let him ride into the drainage ditch after all.
“Err … sorry about that,” the man said, shoving the fruit back into his bag. “Morgueberries aren't everyone's cup o' tea, but it seemed like you were crashin' pretty hard.”
Brow creased with concern, he held out a hand to help her up. Win stared at it warily, but took it, letting herself be tugged to her feet.
“Hey now, you all right?” he said, nodding at their joined hands. Win looked down and saw her hands tremble, knuckles white. Her mouth welled up with saliva, the acrid taste of polluted water magic still on her tongue, and she had to fight the urge to spit it out. She wanted to run, like she had before. She could, too. Underground. Into the mountains, if she was quick enough. This town didn't have more than a day. Maybe not even that.
“Do you want me to find Ivy for you?” the man asked, delicately ignoring Win's nails digging into his hands. “She manages to be everywhere at once on a normal day, so I'm sure I'll find her.”
“Ivy?” she said, her voice thin and distant. She shook her head. “No.”
Her hands slackening in his, she pulled away and turned back up the road, feeling the threads of herself unravel.
* * *
Sunnydale was in chaos.
A week ago, it hadn't been worse than any typical Saturday at the height of apple season. Now, as the sky turned bruise green and crackled with lights like a million cameras flashing, Ivy was beginning to question her can-do attitude.
“Just grab what you can carry and get indoors,” she shouted over the shrieking winds. Half the town was running seemingly in circles through the streets with anything from a backpack full of heirloom seeds to three yowling cats and a wheel of cheddar.
“Everyone, this is not a normal storm. Please, we've bagged and boarded up as much as we can. It's going to hit any minute!” Her words were swallowed in the wind and the frantic chatter on the streets. Ivy scanned her clipboard. Her neatly organized evacuation checklist had fallen into disarray an hour ago. “What's the protocol for sparkly sea foam storms?”
“Will ya look at that!” a man cried next to her, stopping in the middle of the street to point skyward.
“Yes, we've all seen it, Frank,” Ivy said. “Will you get inside?”
“What is it?” a woman squinted. Three others stopped and joined her. Another held up his wheel of cheddar to shield them from the wind.
Ivy gawked at them. “Guys, we're not birdwatching here!”
Breaking into the front of the crowd, a little girl waved a chubby hand over her head. “Dragon! Dragon!”
Ivy's heart skipped and skidded. She turned and looked up at the looming storm, a funnel of blurred blue and silver making the air around it ripple.
And flying straight toward it was a dragon. Long as a cottage from nose to tail, its obsidian scales gleamed in its own light, wings encased in white-hot, diaphanous flames. It turned its head, and its eyes were strangely familiar, like warm honey or amber.
Ivy dropped her clipboard, pages flapping in the wind. “ … Win?”
The crowd was rooted to the spot, no longer caring about the debris swirling around them. Neighbors wandered out of their locked houses and shelters to join them, but Ivy just stood with her mouth hanging open as if to catch snowflakes. Overhead, the dragon beat its wings hard against the driving winds, straining forward what seemed only inches before being blown back. A streak of silver flew from the storm's edge and grazed the dragon's wing, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd. A rattling cry echoed across the sky between them, and with a final push, the dragon corkscrewed forward until the storm swallowed it completely.
The crowd broke into a cacophony of panicked voices, but Ivy barely heard it. Her eyes were fixed on the point where the dragon had disappeared, willing it to leap back through the angry whorl. Instead, the storm shuddered and growled, tearing wildly from side to side. Sparks flew in every direction as if it was trying to rip itself apart. Ivy wasn't sure she was breathing. Around her, people started murmuring, no doubt giving the dragon up for dead. They were probably right, Ivy knew. She should turn around and get people back inside. If only she could make her legs work.
If only that wasn't Win.
She stared up at the storm, looming, angry, otherworldly. “Give her back,” she said. As the words left her, a warm golden light flickered and flared deep in the belly of the storm.
At first, she thought she was imagining it, staring too long at the brilliant and terrible magic and seeing stars. The second time, it stayed and grew. Swelling, expanding, an explosion in slow motion. Ivy's eyes burned and welled with tears, but she didn't blink. The wall of the storm seemed to grow thin, the conflagration pressing against it until it cracked. Beneath her, the ground shuddered, and a blinding flash of light was all she saw before being knocked off her feet.
Seconds ticked by. Ivy sat hunched and huddled with the crowd, all of them still and silent, waiting for aftershocks. Now that she had turned away, she was afraid to look back and see what remained. Until she felt a warm droplet hit the back of her neck. Her head shot up, and another raindrop splashed on her cheek. Then another. The rest of the town began to unfurl around her, looking up and sighing as the scattered storm fell as gentle autumn rain as far as the eye could see.
Ivy stood on shaking legs, searching the skies until she caught the spread of dragon wings high on a hill's peak. Their blazing aura softened, they shrank and folded themselves into familiar shoulders behind long sheets of windswept black hair, and by the time two heavy boots touched down on the grass, they was gone.
* * *
The sun broke over the horizon the next morning, a long shadow stretching out from Ivy's feet as she reached the top of Bann Hill.
“I was wondering when you'd finally show up.”
Ivy froze, taking in the sight. Win sat on her front step, wrapped in a quilt and sipping from a chipped mug, several dragons clambering around her. She looked just like she always had to Ivy, which was the strangest part.
Win nodded toward the packages under Ivy's arms. “What's all that?”
Smiling crookedly, Ivy held out one of the boxes. “I wasn't sure what kind of medicine might be needed after battling a magical storm, so—”
“Pancakes,” Win finished. “Perfect.”
“Now this one.” Ivy handed over a large wrapped package. “Open it.”
Eyeing her with mock-suspicion, Win tore through the paper, drawing a quiet gasp.
Ivy shrugged. “You're not the only one who can be full of surprises.”
Amber eyes aglow, Win shifted the frame until the stained glass panels caught the morning sun, glittering jewel tones through the black outline of a dragon suspended in flight.
“I just thought you might want a little extra privacy once people figure out you're the infamous giant dragon of Bann Hill, to whom they owe the integrity of their homes and possibly their lives.” Ivy raised her brows, daring her to deny it.
Sinking a little deeper into her bundle of blankets, Win picked at the chipped rim of her cup, not meeting her gaze. “I probably couldn't have done it without you.”
“Me?” Ivy barked out a laugh. “Win, I have many skills, and I'll admit some of the things I've pulled off in the name of community organizing may seem like magic, but the truth is I have about as much magical ability as a wet mop.”
The corners of Win's mouth twitched as they had many times before, but now it seemed she didn't have the strength to control them as a full-blown grin spread across her face. Ivy stared. It was such a strange sight. She seemed younger somehow, lighter, like she'd shed a few layers even while still wrapped up in blankets.
Win laughed at Ivy's open gaping. “I meant the roof, dummy.”
Ivy blinked, feeling foggy and te
n steps behind. Win rolled her eyes.
“I'm a fire witch,” she said. “Our ultimate source is the sun.”
Mind whirling, Ivy shook her head. “So let me get this straight. You turned into a dragon, plugged yourself into your solar roof—which apparently is much more efficient after all—and flew off like a juiced-up battery to fight a magical storm?”
“Actually, I plugged in before I turned into a dragon. No opposable thumbs in that form.” She laughed weakly, wiggling her fingers, but Ivy could feel her wanting to curl back in on herself like a gnawing hole in her own stomach.
“That was why you moved out here, wasn't it?” Ivy asked. “Not just for your dragons, but for you.”
Win shrugged a shoulder. “If they didn't like my cat-sized strays, how do you think they reacted when they saw me turn the first time?”
“Sunnydale won't be like that,” Ivy said, wanting to wrap the words around her like another blanket. “Win, they already love you. They want to organize a festival in your honor, and it wasn't even my idea. I heard talk of building a statue in the middle of the Village Green.”
Win's eyes widened in horror, and Ivy couldn't help but laugh.
“I told them a stained glass window would probably be more to your taste.”
Cheeks coloring, Win nodded gratefully.
Ivy gestured toward the broken window. “Good thing I did, too. Some people might be pushy enough to try to talk to you through that.”
The corners of Win's mouth quirked up. “Mm, that could be a problem.”
Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology Page 37
