Derrith

I had been watching them for a while now, those travelers, aimless and weary, weak and a danger to their own selves. I watched them from a distance mostly, but sometimes I crept close to test the limits of their awareness. So far, I sensed they were very densely packed, energetically speaking, and hardly capable of being conscious of much at all.

What appeared to be a parent-type (I knew the human words, but I did not prefer their customs. So while I was determined to intermingle my world with theirs, I was not willing to stoop to engross myself in their naive societal generalizations…) plodded along out front of a dilapidated and noisy wooden cart. The cart was pulled by two horses, and it appeared that the human had decided he’d spare the horses some energy that could be used to further the cart, by walking alongside. He slid about in the muddy marsh, the carriage having its own difficult time churning through the muck. The horses did their best, but tripped around as well, making the crossing of the terrain take much longer than ever seemed possible.

On the cart, another parental figure, a rounder one, mostly slumped down in the front seat, a tiny one on her lap. Another child looked out from the small carriage compartment window, listlessly. And finally, at the rear of the whole spectacle, the area of my closest inspection, was another young child. Not as young as the babe in the seated parent’s arms, but also without a rapidly hardening brain as the one inside the cart. No, this child was perfect for my…experiment, as we were calling it.

This wasn’t my first attempt at harmonizing as we ancients liked to call it. The younger ones had other, more vulgar terms, in my opinion. Synthesizing, harmonizing, linking, tuning…these all suited my ideas that the experiment was a positive experience on both sides. Many believed this type of union was ordained a very long time ago. I didn’t think too much into the moral implications of it, nor did I want to, which is why I did not enjoy some of the terms the youth were more recently employing. It was an ancient skill. Not only practiced by our kind, but by many other creatures. I knew I was very powerful, but I wanted to play in the modern game. Hardly any magical beings were even able to show themselves in these times of great density and denial. Not only was there just not enough belief in the air, but the lack of passion and cloud of melancholy that had settled onto most areas of the planet by now was enormous.

We vibrated at a frequency that must be maintained above a certain level or it felt like we were suffocating. One could train to be more at peace and therefore safer in the lower vibrational zones. Luckily for me, I was born a great many years ago, when the gravity was less, and I had a chance to acclimate to the changing energetic atmosphere. I still hadn't dared to show myself to a human in well over two centuries. It had only been in the last few decades that I took interest once again in human affairs. I had not cared much for humans, but I had seen the damage they have wreaked on the planet. The wars and the torture of animals and each other lowered the energetic frequency of the sphere in total, making it almost impossible for any beings of lighter energetic frameworks to exist on the lowest terrains, much less to assist and heal.

My plan was to build up a great leader, but I needed to start them small. I had made many mistakes, taking children's minds too early, or too late and causing seizures of irreparable damage when I “load on board” so to speak. The child needed to be cognizant but not quite aware, walking but within their first years of life. I believed I would do it right this time.

The toddler swayed on the back of the carriage. They reached for a cattail but continually failed to grasp it. The older child watched with hardened eyes from within the cart. The one parent nodded off, fortunately, the baby was tied on with a strap, as it dangled loosely in front. The walking parent for a moment also passed out, allowing the horses to rest and graze on the luscious, dark green swamp grasses.

I promise you, I had not used any magic on them up until this point. I certainly could have and no one would have ever been the wiser. But I wanted a clean tale. Somehow, I think I wanted to convince myself that the child wanted this as well. I needed to give myself time to observe the young beast and determine that it had a heroic spirit that needed unleashing, knowing full well that I was the one with this indomitable energy that desperately needed an outlet. I think I had decided that if I got to know the human, as well as can be at this age, searching their mind for all they were, that somehow it would make my actions and experiences purer in the long run when I was the one controlling the words behind their thoughts.

Some beings purformed this type of work remotely, but the connections had potential to end abruptly with easy local takeovers and disruptions. After several unsuccessful trials, I figured out that I needed to commit to psychic companionship. It couldn’t be seen as my life and the life of the human child. I had to become them. In essence, I was the human child. This idea mostly repulsed me and why I would decide that this was the best way to enact change in the deteriorating world was beyond me. Humans and dragons had once cohabitated for eons together, intermingling their psyches and engaging in the most extravagant of feats. Was I to be judged for wanting to attempt to emulate the golden years? Many said “Yes” and they judged me. They lived in vibrational pathways and dimensions far away from the humans. But every realm is ultimately connected and the debris from one, will inevitably find its way into the other. They turned a blind eye to the disappearing vibrance and the thickening dark clouds. They blamed it on seasons, knowing full well that the path they were allowing the humans to follow would lead all realms to collapse and a restart from the void.

Again, I cared less for humans. But I cared most for the world. Dragons can be born with many powers, but we all come from the heart of the earth. We appear strong, and that we are, but we also feel every little bit of the pain of the Planet. We harden ourselves to our deep empathy, in order to achieve more in the astral and physical realms. Beyond this, we are psychic and very active on the mental sphere of creation, fluent in sacred geometric architecture of the souls of beings as small as ants and as large as planets.

Part of me couldn’t believe I was still on this quest. I could be ruling other realms, languishing in the secret caverns of the sky, sipping on rainbow dew drops, and eating tender morsels. Yet, in the back of my mind, I always had that inkling of my numbness to the suffering of the living rock that birthed me, and the longer I lived, the more I couldn’t sit well with myself, greedily using all my powers for my own good. So here I was, crouched in the shadows of a large coniferous tree.

The wagon again slowed to a stop in the mud, the walking fellow leaning on the rear of one of the horses in total exhaustion. The rest of the party was also asleep, except for the toddler who promptly popped off the rear seat to finally grasp the cattail. I felt proud of my little dude! So young, and already achieving dreams. Before getting too lost in my potentially abysmal sentiment, I noticed my sure-shot moment to lure away the child. Taking another cattail in my tail, I broke it off at the stalk and slithered it along the ground in front of the child with the tip of my tail. The child took the bait! Quite excited to see their favorite plant moving with animation, the child clapped and giggled and quickly scrambled after my ruse. Once far enough away from the somnolent family, and hidden in a small clearing in the middle of a dense thicket, I allowed the young beast to capture its prey. As the child stood, picking out the seeds and gaily throwing them in the air, I scanned their brain for any weak spots or deficiencies. The first aspect I noted was a weak will and a whimsical nature. Some would see this as a problem and pass them up, but my goal was to drive, and driving was what I did best. I wanted a nature that would easily succumb to me and be content to take the back seat, as I maneuvered us to victory. Pleased with my findings, and continuing to scan the rest of the psyche, I found nothing alarming, except for perhaps the locked box of ancestral trauma that I knew we would open eventually. But this is the case with any human of Earth.

The kid was beginning to squirm. The cattail completely plucked of its offerings. I had to work quickly, before any noises or projectiles began. I took in a deep well of air through my nostrils and felt the energy spiraling through me. I concentrated on the ancient symbols of our tradition, and said the words in my mind to strengthen and seal the connection of psyches.

The child shrieked and threw their tiny body onto the ground. I backed off. I had been trying to enter their consciousness softly and over time, pushing in a tiny bit more, minute by minute, but I suppose I have a heavier push than I imagine. Each child is different and no two barriers are ever the same. As I watched the child writhe, for the first time I realized two things. One, I had picked the correct age and style of human child, and this was actually working, and two, I would soon be a human child, by all intents and purposes, and I had no idea what I was going to do and how I would survive with my child self and a half invisible dragon by my side. As with any fusion, there is a little crossover, and I knew once our minds had fused, I may forget any number of large or trivial concepts. I soon also realized, in order to survive as a human child this age, I would have to give up on immediately taking over the Empire. I needed care and security. I needed some sort of home. I needed to grow up strong, and not shivering in the forest, undernourished. Unsure of how this would all play out, and I wanted to secure my success, I, now halfway between a young human consciousness and an ancient dragon consciousness, reached out to my parents. Part of me knew the way back to the cart and part of me didn’t. It took every bit of strength for me to follow the one that did, and that part of me was fading fast. I had never made it this far in the connection and I was feeling elated. I ran on my tiny human legs, tripping often over roots growing out of the ground, almost getting distracted by more cattails, until I finally got back to the cart, which was thankfully still stopped in the mud. A part of me realized that the whole adventure of leaving the cart and returning may have only taken less than five minutes. Another part of me only noticed I wanted the warmth of the wagon and the security of my blanket. The last thing I remembered on that first day of our merger was curling up next to my sibling inside the cart, as they stared at me blankly, I felt powerful, and very sleepy.

When I awoke, what may have been several days later, I was tucked in a small, soft bed, and I remembered nothing. At least a part of me didn’t. Another part of me did. But that voice had been layered over by many other aspects of me, still undefined, and would unexpectedly have to take a back seat, for as many years as it took me to uncover myself. It would take me years to get back to that voice.