Maelstrom Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The moment the egg cracked, something in the balance shifted. Every magic worker on Dunia was awoken from the deep slumber of early morning. From the most common of hedge witches to the mightiest of Court sorcerers, they were all shaken from sleep as the Earth suddenly moved. Most went back to bed, attributing their sudden insomnia to a dream they couldn’t remember. All but two forgot about it by the next morning; all but two knew nothing of the war that had just begun. The two who did understand spoke no word, but instead went to work; one to protect, and one to destroy.

My memory of the night before was foggy. I knew that I had fallen asleep with the hatchling in my arms, overwhelmed and exhausted. As morning crept up on cat’s paws, the air around me began to pick up temperature. The butterfly-wing touch of it on my skin was enough to wake me up. I opened my eyes a crack as I sat up. Whatever drunkenness sleep might have left on me was quickly dispelled. I felt... good. Gone was the burning fire of the night before, but that energy still pulsed within me. The headache and fogginess of the concussion was missing as well. As I looked down at myself I realized that I had also gained something.

Tracing my collarbone, spiraling across my shoulders, and winding down my upper arms, were markings of silver. The filigree of pigment wound together and took the shape of a dragon’s head and wings, with the eyes below the hollow of my neck and the wings spreading across my shoulders. Its claws reached under my shirt, down towards my breasts. I lifted my tunic up, and saw that the tail went down the middle of my abdomen, ending just above my belly button. The warmth I’d felt the night before still radiated from its stylized eyes.

I touched it, and I was aware that I could sense the tiny ridges of my fingerprints, and count the tiny hairs on my skin. My clothes suddenly felt very rough and dirty. I could smell myself far more strongly now, too, and I wrinkled my nose. My nostrils widened with the action and a barrage of scents swirled in. The smell of every individual flower, the pollen of the grass, the half-perceptible scent of warming air were all there. I could not only separate them from each other but sense their distance from me. I knew that the unsettled dust of the landslide was near, on my left, and the freshly broken sap of the tree slightly further away. I tore my eyes away from the mysterious new markings on my chest. I immediately knew where east was, which was also a new thing. I tried to look up at the sun to assess its position, but my eyes revolted against the sudden onslaught of bright light. With a hiss of discomfort, I placed a hand over them and tried to look again. The sky was taking on bluer shades now, but I still could not look towards the sun at all because of my eyes’ sensitivity. Add a new thing to my list. I decided that now was a good time to take inventory.

With my back to the sun I settled down on the lumpy ground next to the landslide. Or sandslide. Whatever to call it. My eyes were stabbing at the back of my head, so I closed them. I explored my surroundings with my other senses, testing their limits. I could smell the proximity of things and separate individual scents from the muddle I used to smell. My ears twitched back and forth like a cat’s with a flexibility that came from newly created muscles in the side of my head. Almost of their own volition, my fingers went to my ears and felt them over. I was not surprised to find that they were now pointed.

The sounds of the crickets turned from a throaty screech to a symphony, with each part distinct from the other. The soughing of the wind across the plains transformed until I could hear as each blade of grass rubbing against its neighbor. A breeze was constantly rushing over the prairie at all hours of the day, but now it took on a new life. I felt each eddy, each swirl of air on the bare skin of my arms and neck. Strands of hair stirred from my shoulders to tickle and trace my cheeks. I opened my mouth to sneeze, and I could taste the wind so clearly it made me gasp instead. Every sense on my body tingled and hummed on the point of bursting. I opened my eyes again, slowly, and this time they adjusted within seconds. A cloud passed over the sun, throwing individual rays of sunlight across the motes of dust and pollen in the air. Each fleck drifted lazily downwards in slow grace like I had never seen before. As the stream tumbled over its bed of shale it sprayed turning, sparkling jewels of water into the air. The crispness of my surroundings was so breathtaking, it was all I could do to remember to blink and breath.

“The world is beautiful.” spoke a voice out of nowhere. I was so startled that I fell sideways from my perch onto the ground. I sat up immediately only to come face-to-face with a silver snout. But instead of reacting violently, I knew exactly where to put my hand: on the left shoulder under the wing joint, where the new scales were itchy. The Dragonet crooned with pleasure and slid down onto my lap.

With each stroke I wondered at the hardness of her scales. They shimmered, too, like pieces of steel each one. Her claws, though tiny, were startlingly sharp. Their polished black color matched that of the sharp, spiky ridge that ran along the top of her spine. As I traced the edge of it with my finger I noticed that between her shoulder blades it flattened out and nearly disappeared before resuming again between her wings. I wondered at the space, trying to imagine why it would be there, when the Dragon suddenly stopped purring and looked up at me.

“The space is where a saddle sits, and the saddle is where you will sit.”

I blinked in surprise. I stood, did a full turn around, then sat back down in a daze.

“Who said… who… what? You? You said…” I stuttered incoherently at the Dragon, who had crawled back into my lap. “But… but… but it was in my head, my mind… I heard that in my head! How did you...?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’ and ‘how’? It is my voice. You hear it in your mind because that is where my voice and my thoughts are. Do you not know how this came to be?” Said the hatchling, who stared back at me with such lucidity.

“No! I don’t know how this came to be, I don’t know how any of this came to be! Do you know? Because I would very much like an explanation!”

“No need to shout. The only explanation is that I hatched for you.”

“But… what does that mean? I don’t understand.” I spluttered.

“So very slow on the uptake. You… and me… are Dragon… and Rider. Forever.” Her face, which was surprisingly like a human’s, showed mild amusement. It was too much for me to even think straight, so I stood up and began to pace back and forth. It was a minute or so before I was capable of speech.

“So the DragonRiders… aren’t dead?” I finally spit out.

“Not quite.” Replied the little Dragon.

“What do you mean by ‘not quite’? Do you mean… We’re the last ones?”

“It is possible that we are, indeed, the last one.”

“The last one… One, why would you say one in the single, not in the plural? There are two of us.”

“No there are not. You and I do not count as two because we are of the same mind, even if we live in two bodies. I love you, and you love me because I am you and you are me.”

“You love me… It’s been a long time since some one told me they loved me. I haven’t heard those words spoken in…”

“Nine and a half years. I know. I know everything you know. That’s how I also knew you needed to hear me say it to believe it. Do you believe it now?” I looked up sharply at the Dragonet now, for I detected a forlorn note in her voice. I stepped up out of the rut I’d created in the grass and went to sit down next to her. She stepped up into my lap and let me pet her.

“I never didn’t believe that this is happening, I just… I need time to make sense of this, I… I don’t understand how you were there all of a sudden when I needed you.” I explained to her.

“I do not know either. I do not know why my mother is not here, I do not know where she is, or how long I have been here. I only know that I hatched to save you, because I knew I could not let you die.”

“But why was it that you couldn’t let me die? Why did you hatch, just for me?”

“Why else would I hatch, except for you? That is what it means to be a DragonRider: to be good enough for a hatchling, asleep in the egg, to choose you. You are good enough for me, and I chose you.”

“So what, does that mean I’m special? Do I have to do something, or go somewhere or what? What do we do now?”

“I do not know.”

“How does that help?! I don’t know anything about being a DragonRider!” I looked at the Dragonet like she could answer the billion questions that bounced around inside my skull. With no help forthcoming, I continued voicing my confusion. “I don’t know what to do or where to go; I mean, look at me! I’m an escaped slave with no jacket or boots, no food, no money, and no horse. The nearest town is miles away, and who knows what they’ll do with me, and what if they try to hurt you? How could I live if they hurt you? We can’t stay here, not by the road, and we can’t go into hiding without provisions. We need help, but who will help an escaped slave and a creature that is supposedly extinct? And-“

“MIRAYAH!” shouted the Dragon in my mind, so loud I put my hands to my temples to quiet the ringing.

“What was that for?!” I shouted at her. She was standing now with her front paws on my legs, staring intently at me with an expression akin to anger.

“You need to get a grip! You are tougher than this. You want to know what to do? You need to feed me! I am hungry, after who-knows-how-long in a shell underground! You know what else? You need to take a bath in that stream and wash your clothes, because you stink! And then you need to sleep, because you are tired and confused. That’s what happens when you become a DragonRider and your body changes. You are not yourself right now, so now is not a good time to be planning.” Said the little Dragon. I realized how right she was and resigned to her judgment with a sigh.

“You’re right, you’re right. I just… I need time to adjust. All of this has happened so very suddenly.”

“We have time. We are, after all, alone here.” I looked up at her words.

“You’re right; we’re alone. When I went under, there were three other people-“

“Your master, the caretaker, and the carriage driver. I know.” She finished my sentence for me.

“But they’re not here now. They must have moved on thinking I was dead. They think… they think I’m dead. Do you know what this means?” I was shrill with excitement.

“Yes.” I ignored her and continued.

“ I don’t know how I missed this before. I’m not an escaped slave. I’m not a runaway. I’m not anything. Which means I’m free! I’m free, for the love of Mother Earth, I’m free!” I shouted, throwing my arms out and falling backward onto the grass. I had a silly smile on my face as I studied the great, blue vault of the sky. The sun seemed brighter, the world bigger, now that I was looking at it with liberated eyes. My hands went automatically to my wrists, to rub the scars, and I found that they were gone. Were… were all of my scars gone? The concussion on my temple was gone, the scratches on my leg, too. With trembling fingers I reached up over my left shoulder with my right hand. There used to be a net of scars on my shoulders and back, some new and some old, from whippings and beatings. Instead of feeling the ridge of scar tissue that I expected to be there, the skin was as smooth as the day I was born. Every trace of my former life was gone.

“That’s what happens when you change; all former wounds are healed.” The Dragon told me as she nestled up under my arm.

“You’ve healed more than that, little one,” I said past the lump in my throat. “A lot more than that.”­­­­