Guinevere's Dragon

"Guinevere..."

The name comes as an otherworldly whisper to the child, floating about in her mind like the puffy white seeds of her favorite wishing dandelions. It is her name she hears, but who could it be? Mommy and Daddy are right there beside her, taking turns holding her hand as she walks between them on their weekly family hike. It is her name she hears, but it was not either of them who spoke it.

Guinevere is beginning to learn and love the small stones, bumpy branches, and crawling creatures of the wooded path that Mommy and Daddy so love to walk with her. By the end of each walk, Guinevere's tiny pockets are filled to bursting with her ground-breaking archaeological discoveries. Dry bits of molted snake skin. Colorful wildflowers of every size and shape. Grimy old coins dropped from loose, unknowing pockets. When bath time comes that night, she will recount her exploration to Mommy and Daddy, vivid tales bubbling from the girl as Mommy laughs and Daddy scrubs the dirt from beneath Guinevere's fingernails.

"Guinevere, come to me..."

There's that whisper again, only just a bit louder this time. Who could that be? Where are they? Guinevere just needs to know.

She releases Mommy's hand, claiming to have discovered a fallen monarch butterfly. She kneels, green-flecked brown circles forming on the knees of her baby-pink pants as they meet the damp ground and dewy grass. Mommy does not kneel with her child, her belly too swollen from the next child to come. Guinevere is grateful for Mommy's swollen belly. She is five years old, after all, and it was about time she were given a playmate that was not Daddy.

Mommy and Daddy turn the bend in the path, searching for the creaky wooden bench that they know is nearby so Mommy can rest. Guinevere sits still as a statue, waiting for the voice to appear again. The breeze dances with the leaves of the trees towering above her, and the whisper comes to her once more.

"You're almost there, Guinevere, come to me. This way, Guinevere..."

Guinevere treads carefully, deeply, quietly into the woods. So carefully, so deeply, so quietly, that Mommy and Daddy do not immediately notice her absence.

"Gwen? Guinevere, where are you? Gwen?"

"Oh, you're almost here to me, Gwen. Just a few more steps..."

How did the whisper know that she prefers to be called Gwen? Guinevere sounds matronly, more suited to a grandma than to her. She tries to tell Mommy and Daddy this, but they do not take her seriously. They just laugh and tell her that it is a beautiful grandma name, as she was named for Mommy's own grandma Guinevere, who is a beautiful woman. Gwen, though, just thinks she looks old.

The woods around her seem to come alive as she grows nearer to the whisper. Towering old trees extend their branches to her, ushering her in. Creatures of the wood chitter and chirp, calling to her like the whisper does. A cool breeze comes, lifts Gwen's black hair from her shoulders and sends deep chills down her back. Oh, Gwen hates the cold! Mommy and Daddy have her coat, she should go back and get it.

"Don't turn back, Gwen, you're almost here..."

No. She can not go back now, she is just too close.

Gwen enters further into the arms of the woods, further and further still, until she comes upon a peculiar sight. A large, circular stone archway, standing tall and proud in an otherwise empty clearing. She has never seen this before, yet she has been hiking in these woods with Mommy and Daddy for as long as she can remember. The archway looks, though, as if it has been here for years.

Gwen approaches the archway, reaching an apprehensive hand out to touch the dew-dressed stones. She peers through the misty entrance of the archway, calling out to anyone who may be on the other side. Nothing.

"Ah, there you are, Gwen! Come in, please."

The voice Gwen hears is no longer a whisper, it speaks as though it is right next to her. A pleasant voice, not too unlike Mommy's. A warm, welcoming sound, wrapping round her like the coat she wishes she had brought with her. She climbs into the entrance of the archway, yearning to be closer to the warmth.

It is not just warmth that Guinevere finds on the other side of the archway. There before her lies a whole new world, an alternate reality never before explored. An alternate reality, and two dragons.

The moment Guinevere lays eyes on the mountainous white dragon with clear blue eyes, she knows it to be the source of the whisper that spoke to her. The other dragon is hardly noticed by Guinevere at first, a small grey beast, curled up in a sleeping ball, wrapped in the embrace of the larger dragon. A mother with her child.

The white dragon lowers here head, nudging the grey one awake with her snout. The dragon's mouth does not move, but Guinevere hears her voice.

"Greystone, awaken now, my sweet. Guinevere has arrived."

The grey dragon - Greystone, Guinevere hears it called - stirs from its slumber. Bright eyes green as a summer hillside open and meet Guinevere's. Greystone looks reluctantly up at her mother before inching her way closer to Guinevere. Is Greystone... afraid of her? But why? Was she not asked to be here?

"You don't have to be afraid," Guinevere insists, holding a tiny hand out to Greystone. "I won't hurt you, I promise."

Greystone turns to her mother again, and again she is told not to fret. Guinevere is friend, not foe. Guinevere is the one, the only one who has answered their call. Greystone comes to Guinevere, nudging the child's hand softly with her snout, large, curious eyes looking the child up and down before she begins to purr and nuzzle against Guinevere like an affectionate house cat.

What is going on? Has Guinevere fallen asleep to Mommy reading one of her fairy tales to her, and this was all a vivid dream? It is the family cat, Jiji, purring and nuzzling her hand right now, right? It must be. Guinevere is about to pinch herself to test her theory, but the mother dragon's voice stops her.

"This is no dream, Guinevere. My name is Whitewing, and this is my daughter, Greystone. She is five years of age, just as you are. Five years ago, when I brought my daughter into this world, she was brought here with a companion. Her brother, Blackwind. My son. He, however, did not survive his journey to this world. We have been alone in our heartache and grief all that time, calling and calling for another to join us here. No one has ever come, until you. Oh, you even have his eyes. His beautiful brown eyes."

Whitewing approaches Guinevere, two mystical beasts looking the child up and down now. Inspecting her. Learning her. Taking her in. Yes, she would do nicely. Perfectly, even...

Guinevere's heart raced as she locked eyes with Whitewing. She just could not believe it, dragons were really real. They were real, and they seemed to like her! Whitewing had read her mind, also, as she had not voiced aloud her suspicions of being in a dream. Oh, she could not wait to tell Mommy and Daddy about this!

"Oh, you need not worry your mother and father with this, Guinevere. They do not even know that you are no longer with them. If they did, they would have come searching high and low for you by now, would they not? I certainly would have, had my sweet Greystone ever gone astray."

Guinevere supposes that Whitewing could be right. Where are Mommy and Daddy? Have they not noticed that she is gone? Guinevere turns to the archway, and the exit looks exactly as the entrance had. A little misty, but otherwise normal. Surely, they could see her from the entrance and call for her if they knew she was gone. They know she is gone. They will come for her.

Right?

"Forget them, Guinevere. Give them no more time or space in your heart. We are here for you now, and they are not."

Guinevere begins to fidget, weaving the string of her dark green hoodie round and round her trembling fingers. Forget them? But, they loved her. They told magical stories to her, and fed her triangles of crunchy peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches with no crust. Her favorite. They tucked her into bed every night with her stuffed dolphin, Sandy, that Daddy bought for her on their vacation to California last month. Mommy painted her fingers and toes to match her leotard for every ballet recital. They loved her.

Right?

"Wrong," Whitewing replies, pulling Guinevere closer to her with the edge of her wing, closing the child into the cocoon of her embrace. "If they loved you, they would be here with you now. They would have never let you leave their side to come find me, Guinevere. They wanted you to find me. They wanted you to leave them, and never return."

The warm, pleasant voice is gone now, replaced with a hollow chill that seems to snatch away whatever heat remained in the air. Gwen really does hate the cold.

"No," Guinevere insists, finally finding her voice and hating how much it quivers. "My mommy and daddy love me. They must be looking for me right now. They must be!"

"I am so sorry, my sweet Guinevere," Whitewing coos. "They are gone, darling. They would have discovered you by now if they were not. See? The sun is already beginning to set. It has been hours now."

Guinevere looks up to see thick, wooly clouds swathing the sun in their fabric, engulfing the light in their dense fibers. What little bit of the sky she could see beneath the wool was streaked with the prettiest pinks and purples. No, it could not possibly be that late. Guinevere had just shared breakfast with Mommy and Daddy not that long ago! She and Daddy had chocolate chip banana pancakes with bacon, and Mommy had toast with mayonnaise and scrambled eggs. That was almost all she could eat now because of the girl growing in her belly. Mommy says that that is all the baby wants to eat, which Guinevere never understood. She hates eggs and mayonnaise both.

Guinevere sinks to the ground, her dirt-smudged knees pulled to her chest as sobs take over her. She just cannot believe it. Mommy and Daddy have forgotten her. Left her, for all they know, to be lost in the woods forever.

"Guinevere! Guinevere Lynette, where are you? Come back, please! Gwennie, please come back to us!"

Is this a trick? Why did she hear Mommy's and Daddy's voices now? Who else knew her middle name, called her Gwennie? No. She must be imagining it. They do not want her anymore, if they ever did at all.

"That's right, child," Whitewing reassures her. "It is only your imagination. I will be your mother now, okay, my sweet? I will never abandon you as your old mother and father did."

Whitewing scoops Guinevere up, lifting the child to meet her gaze. Whitewing touches the child's forehead to her own, and the girl's eyes flutter shut, rolling into the back of her head as Whitewing goes to work on altering Guinevere's memories. She will never long for her useless human parents again. She will only ever know Whitewing as her mother, and Greystone as her sister. Guinevere is Blackwind incarnate. She must be.

"Mama!"

Whitewing stops short, frozen in place by hearing Greystone's first word. Mama. But, it was not a crooning of love. It was a shout of warning. Two more humans, adults, burst through the archway, screaming Guinevere's name. Tears ran down their red-blotched cheeks, and the woman held tight to her abnormally large belly. The faintest echo of a heartbeat sounded from the belly. Oh, it was not two humans, but three.

No. Whitewing would not have another child taken from her.

Whitewing screeches in the humans' faces, watching with great delight as their puny eyes widen with terror. Guinevere is fighting fiercely to escape Whitewing's grasp at the sight of the humans, desperate wails shredding the child's throat.

"Mommy! Daddy! Please! Save me, please! Please, get me out of here!"

Oh, no, no. Whitewing will have none of that. She tells Greystone to hurry away to the safety of the wood, then swoops down to the archway, ensnaring the three humans in her jaws and snapping them down before they or Guinevere can even scream.

There. Now no one can ever have Guinevere again.

No one but her and Greystone.

"No!", Guinevere sobs, beating against the dragon's back with all the might her tiny fists can muster. "No! How could you? I thought you loved me! What have you done?"

"I SAVED YOU!", Whitewing bellows, specks of blood and flesh flying from her lips and into Guinevere's face. Her eyes are wide as Mommy's favorite dinner plates as she brings her hand to her face, wiping away the last of her mother, father, and unborn sister.

Guinevere's head grows light, and she falls from the dragon's back to the hard forest floor with a heavy, unforgiving thump. Blood springs up from her scraped palms and knees, blending in with the streaks of Mommy and Daddy and baby Aurelia. Guinevere picked that name out from her favorite fairy tale book. Her baby sister. Her soon-to-be playmate.

"What have you done?", Guinevere repeats weakly, stumbling as she regains herself, sitting up and bringing her knees to her chest once more.

Whitewing crouches down, face to face with the trembling, weepy child. The dragon pulls the child to her again, foreheads touching carefully. Guinevere's brown eyes disappear into the back of her head again as Whitewing erases the last memories of the child's former life and answers.

"I saved you."