Wings of Change

by Lyn Worthen

  “I have control! I have plenty of control! I’m not screaming right now and that takes so much control I can’t even describe it!”

  Her mother laughed. “I’m sure it is. But specifically, a wild dragon will never give up anything from its hoard. No matter what it is, no matter whether the thing is useful to it or not. Once something has caught their fancy, they’ll tear apart their own young before they’ll release it.”

  Loreth saw the connection, of course, and her heart hurt.

  “We are not like that,” her mother said softly. “We are civilized. We are rational. We can overcome our hoard instincts. If you cannot do that, then you’re not ready to take on the responsibilities of an adult dragon.” She looked at Loreth, her orange eyes swirling with understanding. “Can you do that, dearest?”

  Loreth swallowed hard. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Good. Go get your child’s hoard, then, and we’ll be off.”

  No matter how Loreth dawdled, it was far too soon when she and her mother circled the ledge at the western side of the lip of the Snowplunge Falls. They glided down, landing next to another dragon who waited there.

  “Good day to you, Mireth,” said the strange dragon. “This is Loreth?”

  “Yes,” said her mother. “Cashell, this is my daughter Loreth. Loreth, this is Cashell. He is a Loremaster, and he will wait with me to see what you bring back.”

  “Hello, Loreth. Congratulations on your Hoard Day.”

  “Thank you, Master Cashell.”

  “Are you ready to leave childhood behind?”

  Loreth couldn’t prevent her fanned ears from tilting backward, just a little. “Yes, Master Cashell.”

  “Very well.” He tilted his snout and pointed his tail at the edge of the ledge.

  It was a long way down. Beside her, the fresh, white-churned water that had journeyed so far down the mountains leapt into the abyss and plunged down, down, down into the mists, where yesterday there’d been rock poking out of ice. Misty spray, like tiny dust motes made of water, drifted and clung to her scales.

  She clutched the leather pouch in her hands, then made herself open the buckle.

  I can let go of my child hoard, she thought fiercely. I will miss it, just as I’ll miss my mother, and even Brathell, sometimes. I will miss knowing that, if I do something foolish, Mother will always make it right, or tell me how to do so. I will miss being a child, but being an adult is so much better. I know that. I want to do this.

  She felt around in the pouch, wavered, then muttered a curse to herself and pulled out the three-horned goat’s head first. With a roar and a gout of flame, she threw the skull far out over the rushing water, watching it arc and fall.

  Everything else would be easier after that.

  One by one, she threw away all the things she’d collected, the pile of “treasure” she’d played with when she was little, and decorated her part of the cavern with when she was older.

  When the pouch was empty, she almost threw it over too, but that would be foolish. It was a good, sturdy pouch of elk leather, and there was no good reason to deliberately lose it.

  Instead, she turned to face her mother and the Loremaster once more.

  “There,” Loreth said. “I’ve thrown away my childhood. Can I go now?”

  “Yes,” said her mother. “Fly far, and be safe.”

  “Return with something that calls to your heart,” said the Loremaster. “What you choose will replace all that you’ve discarded, and will be the foundation of your new hoard.”

  “I will,” she said, looking at them both. She knew she should say something adult, something ceremonious to mark the occasion, but she was still upset at what she’d had to do, ashamed of herself for being so upset, and trying to figure out who or what to flame for it. So all she said was, “Goodbye,” before turning and leaping off the ledge.

  She snapped her wings open to catch the air and soared away. The landscape, with its rocky spires, sparkling snowfields, and the creeping glacier off to the east, unrolled beneath her.

  It was past noontime before she left territory she was familiar with, gliding over lands she’d never seen. She’d explored the lands close by their cave with her mother often, but had never come so far alone before. The mountains softened into hills and grew carpets of grass. The scrubby bushes of the lower-altitude mountains turned into green trees, soft and pillowy-looking from high in the air. They covered the land like mounds of moss.

  The sun was within greeting distance of the horizon before Loreth’s gurgling stomach reminded her that she’d have to catch something for dinner. She searched out breaks in the forest and passed over several meadows before seeing puffy grey beasts that she’d only seen occasionally at home.

  Sheep were tasty, though, and not as fast or as wily as goats. She swooped down and was upon them before they could scatter. She grabbed one in her hind claws, snapped its neck with her teeth, and pumped her wings hard to regain altitude.

  Now, where to take it?

  Loreth realized she couldn’t go home where there was a hearth and a fire. She could eat it raw while flying if she had to, but she’d rather not. If she could find a nice cave, that’d be ideal. A crag, a ledge, somewhere to roost where she could see anything approaching would be next best, but there was nothing like that as far as she could see.

  There hadn’t been anything like that for hours.

  Suddenly, the land below her felt strange and alien in a way it had not all day. Exploring and seeing new things was fun, but realizing she had to make some sort of camp, in land unlike anything she’d ever lived in, that was frightening.

  She flew, carrying the sheep, until after the sun had set and the sky turned to a scatter of gems in the black sky. By the light of the moon, she finally found a hill, standing alone, surrounded by lowland wood.

  Good enough. She was so hungry she ate her sheep raw and tossed the bones down one side of the hill. Once finished she scratched a depression to sleep in in the other hillside. It was warm in the lowlands; at least she wouldn’t have to worry about being cold.

  She slept.

  # # #

  The next morning, Loreth awoke to the noise of shrieking birds. Not the eagles she was used to, but dozens of tiny little birds that barely deserved the name, each determined to let the world know exactly where it was, as loudly as possible.

  It seemed rather foolish, for something so small and doubtless tasty. A dozen of the tiny birds would be barely a mouthful, so it wasn’t worth trying to catch any of them, but surely there were smaller predators nearby.

  Strange.

  She followed the scent of water to a tiny trickle of a stream and drank, then thought about where to go.

  She had no idea what she was looking for. Anything that caught a dragon’s fancy might be collected as part of their hoard. Some dragons liked particular types of things. Her father was a traditional sort and collected gems. She had an aunt who liked worked metal – the shinier the better – and spent a lot of time in the Human lands searching for the tiny, delicately decorated metal things they made. She’d learned to work metal herself, and made practical things, drinking vessels and locking boxes and metal fittings for collars and harnesses, as well as pretty, shiny things. Loreth had a gold ring on one of her hind fingers made by her aunt.

  Her mother collected knowledge, books in different forms, like the scroll Loreth had been reading just the previous morning. That one was a collection of drawings of lizards, some painted in bright colors, with notes about their habits and where they could be found. Her mother copied books too, and had a fine hand. Sometimes she wrote books of her own, about the history of her clan. When they flew here and there to visit with relatives, while Loreth played with her cousins her mother was usually talking with an older relative asking questions and taking notes.

  Loreth wasn’t sure what she wanted to collect.

  Many dragons had hodge-podge hoards full of this and that, whatever they came across and liked enough t
o carry home. Loreth might do that. Why choose one kind of thing if you didn’t have to?

  But Loremaster Cashell was right. This would be the first item for her new hoard. It was special, and she wanted to find the right thing.

  She wished she’d stayed longer with her mother and the Loremaster, asked more questions. Her mother would likely have had more advice, if Loreth had given her a chance to offer it.

  “You’re an adult,” she muttered. “Figure it out.”

  She flew lower and slowed down, watching the land more carefully. Something would turn up. It just had to catch her eye.

  # # #

  Four days later, Loreth still searched. She’d moved beyond the forest, into a land of intermittent hills and grassland.

  Being so far from home made her nervous, but in the last couple of days it had become a good nervous – a tightening of her awareness, a sharpening of her ears and nose and eyes. The strangeness of the land and its birds and animals made her aware that danger could be anywhere; but the knowledge that very few living creatures could harm an adult dragon gave her confidence.

  She was, however, starting to wish she’d asked her mother for directions to more inhabited lands. Humans made interesting things. So did gnomes. Giants were dangerous, but their stone tools were impressive – large enough for a dragon to use, and with a simple craftsmanship that one had to admire.

  All she’d seen, though, were trees, hills, grass, rivers, lakes… nothing she could collect, nothing that would fit into a hoard.

  Once again, she scratched out a nest in the soil, something she’d gotten better at with practice, and settled in to sleep She’d been heading mostly in one direction; tomorrow, she’d turn left at a right angle and see what there was in that direction.

  When she woke, however, it was still dark out. The moon had shrunk and the stars shone cold light down on the sleeping world.

  But not all of it was sleeping. Loreth heard something scrabbling through the bushes, heaving breath and the scuffing of feet on grass.

  Maybe breakfast was coming? She stood up, careful and silent, and watched, tracking the sound with her fanned ears.

  When the animal stumbled into the clearing, Loreth reared back in shock, then winced at the startled scream the thing made.

  It was a human.

  She was pretty sure it was a human. She’d never seen one, but she’d seen pictures in her mother’s books. They were like lizards, but with naked, delicate skin, and they wrapped themselves in leather and woven cloth. They had fur on their heads, and they could talk and make things, so they were intelligent. Loreth had read stories and histories about them, but had never seen one.

  The human tried to spin around – Loreth imagined it wanted to flee – but it screamed again and collapsed in a heap in the grass, limbs flailing, and a long stick it’d been carrying falling to the ground just out of its reach.

  It turned onto its backside and pushed itself away from Loreth with both forelimbs and one rear limb. The other rear limb it kept curled up and didn’t move it much. Maybe it was injured.

  “Whatever I did to offend you,” it shouted, “let this monster eat me quickly! And damn you all!”

  “Are you talking to me? Or am I the monster?”

  The human yelped again and scooted farther away, then cried out in pain and grabbed the rear limb Loreth was now sure was injured. “You speak!”

  “So do you,” said Loreth. She was half indignant and half amused. “Are you hurt? Can I help?”

  “You’re just going to eat me, why do you care if my ankle is broken?”

  “I’m not going to eat you!” Loreth glared down at it, definitely offended now. “We don’t eat things that can talk. It’s uncivilized.”

  The human gave a rather unwell-sounding laugh. “Pity! There are some bandits after me. If you ate them, it’d do my whole village a favor.”

  “They hurt you?” Loreth asked. Bandits were some kind of outlaws, she knew, although she’d never met anyone who bandited. They mainly seemed to think anything they wanted was theirs for the taking. That made sense to Loreth, it being a dragonish kind of attitude. But she understood that the folks they took from might not agree.

  Mostly nobody argued when a dragon wanted something.

  “Of course they hurt me! They’re bandits! They came to our village and killed all the men, they’ve been using the women they think are pretty, and they torment the children! They take what they want and wreck everything else, and laughed when we plead for them to take their loot and go. I couldn’t stand it anymore and ran, but they’ve been chasing me all night, like a deer!”

  “Well, that’s just foolish,” said Loreth. “If they hurt people and wreck all their things, how do they expect the people to make more of what they want? It’s like slaughtering your entire herd and then eating only one or two goats.”

  The human stared at her in silence for a few moments. In that silence, Loreth heard more bush-rustling.

  She huffed out a puff of smoke and crouched down to launch into the air. Maybe these were young bandits who didn’t know how things were done? Maybe their people didn’t have any kind of adulthood rite to teach them the way of it?

  She beat her wings and climbed just a few wingspans into the air, circling the side of the hill the human had come from. Screams and shouts exploded from a little clot of humans. Some ran, some shot arrows at her, and some just stood there staring and shouting.

  The arrows bounced off her scales, so she ignored them – although she’d have to bring up the rudeness of shooting at her – and glided down to land just ahead of the ones who were fleeing.

  “Hello!” she called.

  The humans screamed again and ran the other way.

  She flapped into the air again, more awkwardly this time since she didn’t want to go very high, and made a landing ahead of them once more. “Stop!” she shouted and let loose a jet of flame over their heads.

  More screaming. Two of them threw themselves down onto the grass, but the others scattered.

  Loreth huffed out smoke and flew back up the hill. If the bandits weren’t even as smart as a herd of goats, who’d at least stay together, then they obviously weren’t worth talking to. Let them make their stupid mistakes. When they starved next year because there was nothing left to bandit, they’d learn.

  The first human was still there. Loreth was pretty sure it was the first one. It’d had cloth wrapped around both its rear limbs together, whereas the bandits had cloth wrapped around each rear limb individually. Maybe that was a bandit custom?

  “They didn’t want to talk,” she said. “They seem very stupid.”

  The human gave a weak laugh. “Stupid, yes. Also vicious, cruel, unfeeling, greedy, lazy–”

  “Very bad bandits, then.”

  “Horrible! When Jazy tried to fight the one who wanted her that first night, she got an elbow hard in his eye. He was so angry, he threw her into her house and set it on fire!” She huffed, like she was trying to puff out some smoke. “Nobody fought them after that.”

  “He wanted to… mate with her?”

  Another not-funny laugh. “You could call it that.”

  Burning someone because they didn’t want to mate… Well, a dragon might do that, but dragon hide was impervious to fire. Humans, and most other animals, were not. Burning someone because they didn’t want to mate seemed… bizarre.

  “And these bandits are running your village now?”

  “Yes! That’s what I said!” The human threw its forelimbs in the air, then yelped and grabbed its rear limb again.

  “Let me have a look,” said Loreth. She walked over to the human and poked a finger at the limb that protruded from the wrapped cloth.

  The human went as still as a frightened rabbit. “Are you a healer, then?”

  “I’ve patched up my little brother a few times. I’ve never seen a human before tonight, but you seem to have hide and bones and muscles just like me.”

  “It’s my ankl
e,” the human said. “If you’ve something to strap it with, I can manage.”

  Loreth huffed in thought, then rummaged in her carry-collar. It had several pouches on it, and one had a few leather straps, because you never knew when they’d come in handy. “Here, will this do?” She offered a short one, only about as long as her forelimb.

  “Yes, that’s fine. Umm, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” said Loreth. She lowered her head and watched, curious, while the human wrapped up its ankle. “My name is Loreth, by the by. I’m sorry. I hadn’t thought to introduce myself earlier.”

  “I’m Mava. Those bastards would’ve caught me soon if you’d not been here, so it’s good to meet you.”

  “Well, they’re gone now,” said Loreth. “I can’t even smell them.”

  “They’ll be lurking,” said Mava. “They’re probably waiting to see what you do. They’ll figure you’re eating me. If you go to sleep after, they’ll try to come and slay you. You should fly away. And, well, if you could give me a ride somewhere, I’d be that grateful.”

  “Slay me?” Loreth didn’t know whether to stare or laugh. “With what? Do they have a giant or two around? A tribe of ogres, maybe?”

  Mava snorted. “No, they’ll try hacking at you themselves. But only if you’re asleep. Slaying a dragon would make everyone for a week’s travel fear them. Their leader fancies settling down and making himself a lord. Having a dragon’s head to show would make that easier.”

  “My head? I’d like to see him try! Arrogant little squirrel!” Loreth threw back her head and roared fire into the sky.

  Mava finished strapping her ankle and climbed to her feet, slow and careful, watching Loreth the entire time. She took a step, then another, then looked around and picked up her branch. It had a fork on one end, and she fitted that under her arm and used it as a prop. She walked a bit better with it.