Beneath The Wings of a Dragon

The boy’s face was red, smeared with the bloody fingerprints of the Elder when Immanis found him, curled into a ball amongst the tree roots. Between the mud and blood there were streaks of tears where the child had cried himself hoarse, no doubt from the fear of wandering alone in these woods, in which even the trees themselves were unforgiving.

Immanis bowed her great head toward him, first to smell, then nudging him lightly with her snout. The boy did not stir, merely kept on whimpering feebly in his sleep.

It was the fourth child the dragon had found abandoned by his tribe. Every four years it seemed there was another, but this was by far the youngest.

The first year came just after the murder of her own young. When the people had come silently to her home in the night and taken her eggs away. Formosos, Validus and Novellus. She had found their unborn bodies amongst the broken eggshell, moonstruck on the hillside, and wept and howled and raged like only a mother could. She left that morning to find her vengeance. Wanting to watch their villages burn, to laugh into the face of their terror and smell the sweet scent of ash on a dying breeze but then she heard it. Moaning in the undergrowth, mewling like a kitten and pleading for its mother. The child was so vulnerable, and Immanis was so weak, so tired, so pitiful herself that revenge was stolen from her and replaced with mercy. She had returned home and nursed the girl, raising it like a dragon with her pride and dignity. Animula she had named her, attempting to teach her the ancient dragon-tongue of her kind, but being unable to teach much beyond the basics.

Another had come four years later when Immanis had been hunting. Between the trees she had caught a glimpse of something running clumsily. Clambering over roots and falling into flowerbeds. That one had been fearful when she landed. He had fought to escape as she carried him, begging for his life. She had named him Ignavus and tried to make his worrying cease for months, to no avail.

The third she found face down in a stream, its body having long lain lifeless. Immanis wept for the first time in over a decade that night before completing the ritual she had done for her own children. Opening her mouth and letting the fire envelop that tiny corpse, giving up the body to be forever a part of the wind, speaking the name she would’ve bestowed upon her: Perdita.

Now this smaller one was before her, no more than three human years, shivering in the mud. Humans, she thought, how I would hate you if you were not so pitiful.

Her eyes watched the boy’s body rise and fall, rise and fall, as he slept and dreamt serenely.

Sopor, she named him, whispering it softly into his very dreams, before clasping him gently in her mouth and carrying him back to her home.

*****

Sopor awoke, unbeknown to himself, on the fourth anniversary of his adoption as if it were an entirely ordinary day. He rose slowly with the dawn and picked up his makeshift fishing rod, fashioned by Animula from bamboo and intertwined pieces of vine. Ani was good with her hands and made many of the weapons and tools that the children were able to use.

Sopor crept across the darkness, his body now knew the cave they lived in as kin. Each crack or step or crumbling stone was entangled with his senses, and he rarely ever slipped or fell on these cold mornings. Outside, the sky was announcing the days birth with red clouded decoration. It was overcast and almost perfect for fishing. Sopor found himself wishing for a bit of rain as he traipsed down the hillside to the lake at its foot. When he got there, he made himself comfortable, and tore some of the watercress from the bank. The first batch was from an old plant, and he spat the bitter, green saliva into the water, but the second was fresh and bright, providing the refreshment he needed to concentrate.

He stared out over the water. It was completely tranquil. The trees at the far side stood like an open door to the forest, swaying serenely on a gentle breeze.

Sopor heard the large footsteps of Immanis as she exited the cave and made her way slowly down towards him. She stopped beside the lake and looked across much the same way Sopor had. In the darkness of the dragon’s eye the morning light was glinting solemnly like frost on a winter’s grass. She moved her head slowly into Sopor, nuzzling against him as he held her snout. Looking into her eyes he could see just how wizened and tired she had become over the few years he had known her. He did not remember his own parents and therefore thought of Immanis as his only mother, and she in turn thought of him as her son.

The wind picked up. She pulled her snout from his grasp, with great care, almost regretfully as she began to bat her wings and take clumsily to the air. Her great grace merely a memory that only Ani could truly remember well enough to mourn. Sopor watched her, his mother, as she flew across the lake, before rising above the trees of the forest and out of his line of sight.

His rod gave a slight pull, and he reeled in the catch vigorously, retrieving a large carp that he lingered over momentarily before returning it to the lake with a splash.

You should be free, he thought, kicking himself for the folly of his sensitivity.

*****

When Sopor re-entered the cave, he found Animula skinning the hide of a rabbit beside a small fire.

‘Hello Sopor,’ she said absent-mindedly, concentrating on the job at hand.

‘Hello Ani,’ he replied, settling down with a couple of fresh fish to descale.

‘Has she gone?’

‘Yes, she’s gone, I saw her heading out over the forest just now.’

Ani looked up from her work momentarily, as if contemplating something before looking back down and saying casually, as if speaking to no one: ‘The villages are out that way, I think.’

Sopor looked at the leaves holding the meat Ani had extracted, she was tying them up into a bundle.

‘Are you finally going, then?’

‘Yes, I think it’s time.’

‘I don’t see why you must.’ Sopor put his head down and turned slightly away from her.

Ani sighed and put down her package, the rabbit pelt was lying on a stone beside her. She moved to him, sitting beside the boy and stretching an arm around his shoulders. ‘You wouldn’t.’ she said, smiling. ‘Not yet.’

Sopor smiled back. He was going to miss Ani, but she had yearned to find other people for as long as he could remember. At last, it seemed she would.

‘You better get going if you are.’ Ignavus stood shrouded in shadow at the entrance to his bedroom. ‘Before the dragon comes back.’

He sat down by Ani’s package, untied it and skewered a piece of rabbit, holding it over the fire to cook. She scowled from across the room and walked toward him.

‘And why is that?’ she asked, picking up the leaves and meat and retying them.

‘Is it not obvious? You’ll need the head start while she is hunting, even then I doubt you’ll get far.’ He examined the piece of rabbit before taking a bite. ‘I’d go myself if I didn’t expect to be tracked down and eaten in a couple of hours.’

‘She wouldn’t eat us,’ Sopor said quietly.

‘Do you not think? How do you think she got us? I don’t imagine our parents would let us go without a fight, do you?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ani.

Ignavus stood up, swallowing his last piece of rabbit.

‘If you want to go, then go, but don’t be so innocent about it.’

Ani stood looking at him for a while. Then, she walked across the cave to Sopor and held him again, tenderly, almost like a mother.

‘Goodbye, Sopor.’ She cupped his face in her hands. ‘Promise me you won’t lose your innocence.’

‘I promise,’ he whispered, hearing it roll slowly from his tongue and die in the air. They lingered for a moment before Ani stood up very straight and looked at Ignavus.

‘Goodbye, brother.’

He stood, arms crossed, watching her as she grabbed her last few things. The mouth of the cave seemed to open before the dragon’s first child onto everything that could be hers and everything that had never been. The wind was strong now and the trees bent against it. The lake was as flat and placid as ever.

She made her way down the hillside as Sopor watched her go. After a few minutes Ignavus went to the cave mouth, watching, the wind tussling his hair into gentle rivulets, framing the youth of his face, harsh and sharp in the morning light.

*****

It was night when the dragon returned but she was not alone. Instead, she carried a girl in her mouth, hanging, unconscious, from a shirt.

The girl looked older than Sopor but younger than Ignavus and they guessed she was around 15 years old. Immanis dropped her near the fire, and she slept through the rest of the night and the next day, Ignavus sat nearby like a guard. It was when Sopor returned from an evening of fishing and found no one around the fire that he went looking for them.

They were in Ignavus’ room, talking seriously in the corner.

‘But how?’ he was saying as Sopor entered. The girl looked at the boy and smiled,

‘Hello!’ she said brightly.

Ignavus turned. ‘Is the dragon gone?’

‘Yes. Hunting.’

They were all quiet for a moment as Sopor watched the girl. She smiled again and came towards him, resting a hand on his shoulder she asked:

‘Are you scared?’

Sopor was confused. ‘Of what?’

She looked at him pitifully. ‘The dragon.’

Sopor stared. The girl was blonde and unwaveringly innocent in appearance, yet her question brought many of Sopor’s own.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘You’re older than all of us were.’

Now it was her turn to appraise him. How he must’ve looked in his wildness. Matted hair and rotten teeth poking out of his head, and an all too adult sensibility about his demeanour. She smiled again,

‘Yes, there were not many of the age the dragon likes when it attacked. I believe it settled for me out of necessity.’

The air was so wide in its silence.

‘You don’t know what that thing is, you’ve never seen, never known.’ She began, filling the space between them with her words. Obscuring any room for contradiction by her own unshakeable seriousness, ironically stiffened by the waver in her throat.

‘You’ve not been laid waste by its destruction; seen the horror it leaves. You wouldn’t know about the smell of ash where there was once a market. You wouldn’t know the screams of your kin. The thing that holds you here is a monster.’

‘Nothing holds me here,’ interrupted Sopor. ‘I can leave if I want to.’

Now, Ignavus stepped forward. His face looked stern, and his eyes were hard like diamond.

‘Can you?’ he asked. ‘Do you think it is coincidence that the dragon brought back another after Ani left? Do you know what she will find when she reaches that village? Umbra here has told me. Ash. Nought but ash and half charred corpses.’

Sopor shook his head defiantly.

‘It is true,’ spoke the girl Ignavus had named as Umbra. ‘The dragon has always attacked and taken a child, but this time there was only I. It took me and destroyed everything, but not before the Elder could share his dying breath with me. He shared his knowledge; he told me the weak spot. Now I know how to kill the beast.’

Sopor stared at her, before looking at Ignavus.

‘Ignavus,’ he said, ‘You wouldn’t.’ But Ignavus just stared away from him, arms crossed across his chest.

‘You aren’t scared,’ said Umbra, ‘but you should be.’

Sopor his face hot with anger, stormed from the room. Streaking out of the cave, he ran down to the lake, a little black dot against the night, screaming his defiance at the impassive moon, who hung solemnly, listening to it all but offering no consolation in return.

*****

By the time streaks of sun began peeking over the mountaintop, Animula could see the village splayed across the river before her.

She rushed the final mile, the buildings growing as she approached. Having only vague memories of civilisation she was amazed by the architecture that only grew in detail the nearer she got.

On the outskirts of the town, she saw a woman with her back to her tending to a horse outside a large, pointed building that seemed to say, follow my spire, look at that great sky above. Ani was nervous, this being the first person she had seen, apart from the brothers she was raised with, in two decades. Therefore, she could not conjure the words to greet her and simply stood for a while, watching those thin hands go back and forth, back and forth, gently brushing the horses rear, until their owner spoke.

‘Service isn’t for another 15 minutes, but you’re welcome inside if you’d like to talk,’ she said without looking up, before placing the brush on a fence post and walking gracefully into the building.

Inside, the light shone through the coloured windows onto two dusty rows of benches, a long aisle down the middle lead to some kind of stage where a table stood containing assorted items. An open book, a metal cup, a lit candle burning slowly.

Sat at the front was the woman from outside.

‘Take a pew,’ she gestured at the seat beside her.

Animula sat down.

‘So, my child. What brings you to our village?’

She did not understand why this woman was referring to her as her child, but she did not dislike it. She contemplated her question.

‘I wanted to meet people.’

The woman smiled warmly and Animula found her nervousness leaving a little, she was enjoying this first encounter.

‘A noble reason as any, but why in our village? There is Viltung just another 2 days walk down the river for that.’

‘My family is from here.’ The woman looked interested.

‘Is that so? Which family?’

Animula found herself at her first real impasse. She looked toward the window and saw a woman shrouded in blue staring down at her.

Looking away from the image she said, ‘I don’t know, I was taken when I was very young.’

Now, came the woman’s first frown.

‘Taken?’

Animula nodded. ‘By the dragon.’

The woman stared. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the large door opening. She leant in close to Animula.

‘Stay until after the service, please. We have much to discuss.’

She stood and greeted the guests warmly as Animula stared at the woman in blue in the window, her eyes pleading and gentle and suffering.

*****

Sopor had fallen asleep beside the lake and stayed that way until late morning, at which time he awoke to find Ignavus sat beside him, staring over the water.

Sopor, still angry with the older boy, sat up and moved slightly away from him, crossing his arms and refusing to look in his direction.

‘Watching you sleep now reminded me of the first time I ever saw you,’ Ignavus began, still staring out across the lake, seemingly at the forest on the other side. ‘You were sleeping then, too. I must’ve been about 13 and you, you were young. Much too young to understand what was happening, much too young to have any hope of remembering that things existed before the dragon. That there were families, that there were people. That there was happiness and sadness and all of the emotions that humanity inspires.’

He stopped and sighed, putting a hand on his head.

‘We are not designed to live like this. We are supposed to know others, to love them. We are supposed to be human.’

He looked at Sopor who’s arms had uncrossed as he stared at his adopted brother.

‘I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about you. I do, Sopor, you are like a brother to me. That’s why, no matter what you do or say later, no matter how many times or how many ways you try to stop it, the dragon must die. I know you don’t understand but there has to be an end to this, there has to be freedom.’

Ignavus got to his feet.

‘One day you’ll thank me for this. When you’ve felt what its like to be human and know what it means to be denied it.’

He waited momentarily before turning to walk back up to the cave, leaving Sopor to sit, silently, beside his beloved lake which lay solemn and flat, the trees of the forest running along its bank like an unassailable border.

‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘You’re wrong.’

*****

The woman took Ani into a small back room as soon as the service ended and sat her down across from her, a small desk acting as the barrier between them.

‘How did you escape?’

Animula stared.

‘What?’

‘Did the Elder arrive that quickly? We thought he could do it but so fast?’

From behind the woman’s head a shock of sunlight fell upon Animula’s face, highlighting her lack of comprehension.

‘I did not escape from anything.’ She spoke slowly as some of these pieces began to stitch together as if quilted by some unseen hand. ‘What is an Elder?’

The frown returned to the woman’s previously frantic face.

‘But- you said- were you not a captive of the dragon?’

‘I lived there until I felt I wanted to leave,’ Animula replied. ‘She found me in the woods, alone. I had nowhere else to go. She cared for me, for us.’

The woman stood from the desk quickly, her hand shook slightly as she brought it to her face, turning away and peering from the small window at the back wall.

‘You have to understand. It- we couldn’t have known. Oh God, forgive us.’

Animula bore holes into her spine.

‘How did we end up with the dragon?’

The woman glanced at her briefly from under her arm, muttering quietly to herself. Then she turned to Animula.

‘You were sacrifices. Every four years we gave an orphan. If there were no orphans, we made one. You were the first. I remember when the Elder took your hand and lead you into the forest, your little blonde head bobbing up and down. You were so young, we thought it the only way, the only way…’ she trailed off, muttering to herself again, now staring at another depiction of the blue clothed woman, framed on her wall. There was a thick silence before Animula asked her question.

‘Who has gone this time?’

‘The Elder. He has hidden himself as a girl to win the favour of the oldest boy. He said he could free you, he said he could do it.’

‘How?’ Animula asked, feeling the answer as a heavy dread on her sternum.

‘He is going to kill the dragon.’

Animula sat for a moment shocked before she said, ‘Can I take the horse?’

‘Yes.’

Outside the church the woman watched her go, entering that forest again, her blonde head bobbing up and down, up and down, as it had all those years before, as the clouds began to weep, dropping rain like tears on all around.

*****

Immanis awoke.

In the cavern that had been her room she sensed the presence of another, its breath labouring through the shadows.

‘Dragons,’ said the Elder, using the old tongue. ‘Such mundane creatures, all the same as each other really. Wise, gentle beasts for the majority of their lives but not for those first fifty, no, not at all.’

He stepped from the shadow into the glare of the dragon. Around him there was a magical essence flowing in wisps of luminescent colour, burning like a crown of flame around his sparse head of hair. He was almost angelic in the dark.

‘What were you when it happened? Thirty? Forty years old? Still aggressive, still violent. Do you remember their faces as they burned, do you remember their screams? God, I hope you do. I hope it eats you up in dreamless sleep. I hope it destroys you with each breath, each memory like a wound.’

He walked further forward, still glowing like some oracle, like a holy miracle. Immanis knew he was not actually here, merely a projection of himself cast across her imagination. Old magic.

‘Did my people, my town, my family deserve to die so you could mature? Was it worth it to make this, this thing before me? Hardly even a dragon anymore, hardly even alive, just a moving sack of wasted matter. I thought the murder of your young would be enough, an old mother like you, but it wasn’t. I needed you, I needed to see the life leave your body. I have chased you for 800 years, tonight it will end at last.’

He burst into a white flame which strangled Immanis’ vision, sending her into blindness from the shock.

‘Come, meet your doom.’ His voice said, lingering behind his image like an echo.

Then came the first wound, a sharp stab into her ribcage and she turned ferociously to see Ignavus. She stood, dumbstruck, before he struck again with his spear, driving it into her side. Unable to attack she turned and lumbered clumsily from her cavern, breaking through parts of the ceiling and the smouldering fire in the main area. Out of the cave she crashed into the path of the girl, Umbra, on the rain slicked hillside where her unborn had been massacred two decades prior.

She tried to stop but slid, skidding in the mud on her injured side. She let out a roar and heard Sopor scream. He was holding Ignavus’ arm back, but the older boy was too strong. Wrenching it free, he threw Sopor to the ground, crying in the mud.

Immanis watched her oldest son approaching, his face stern and set, grimly determined to do the job. Still, she could only see the cowering child in the woods that day, begging for his life and his safety, and hadn’t she provided it? Hadn’t she tried?

And still, in all this she found she could not hurt him.

Rearing back, she offered him all she had ever offered him, her very heart, which he took with one swift blow, shattering the spear in the softness of her chest. She let out a low moan, and crumpled under the attack, landing on the splintered end of the spear, driving it further into her body.

Then, as she lay dying, watching Sopor’s weeping, Umbra stepped before her. Now, however colour wept around her like smoke, the rain matting her hair to her forehead and she saw her for what she was. She saw the old nemesis that she had brought into her home.

Immanis spoke the old tongue, using her final breath.

‘Revelare te,’

And as the dragon’s body shuddered into death, the artifice of the girl fell away, leaving the old man in her place on the hillside, rain pouring down his face in streams as he smiled at the tragedy before him.

*****

Animula dismounted the horse and ran the last few feet, scrambling past Sopor’s regular fishing spot and up the hillside.

Halfway up she saw the dragon fall, saw the girl revealed as the Elder.

She watched Ignavus as the lie unravelled in his mind, the deception unfurling like a black cloud, like the cloud above, that stormed apocalyptically upon them all. Then, the sliver of blade, glinting in the evening light, shining like starlight as he tore it from his pocket and drove it into the back of the Elder.

He let out a small grunt, gasping, gasping for that desperate taste of oxygen and then fell, slumped upon the dragon before him.

They spoke no words, the three siblings, as they gathered the wood, piling it atop the two corpses in a great pyre. The rain gave way and although it smouldered at first eventually it caught and burnt. Melding the two enemies together as they so often had been throughout their lives.

In silence they wept, stood awkwardly apart, watching the flames lick that great body, watching the fire envelop the only mother they had known. Finally, it was Ignavus who spoke.

‘Was there a town? Past the forest?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so.’

They stood a little longer, watching the ancient ritual, smelling the smoke, blown so carelessly into the wind.

‘Shall we go there.’

‘No.’

‘Where then?’

‘Wherever we can, wherever we are together.’

When the moon rose, it was whole and beautiful. The sky around it was peppered with stars as if someone had poked holes in the very cosmos itself. On the hill there was ash, luminescent in the moonlight, and three orphans with nowhere to go but everywhere and no one to meet but each other.

And, at last, they knew what it was to be human.