Sister of a Dragon

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. My sister wasn’t always a dragon either. In fact, ninety years ago, I did not believe dragons to exist at all. But I am old now, and wiser too, and I know that life is always surprising, and destiny can lead you places you never expected or dreamed of. My destiny led me here, to the Valley, with the dragons.

There is only one human still alive who remembers those days before the dragons. One human, that is to say, me. And I could never forget. It all started abruptly one day, without any warning, when I accidentally turned my sister into a dragon.

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“Wait up Arlania!” I shouted, dashing down the porch and across the soft grass in my bare feet. Arlania was my identical twin, but somehow her legs always seemed endlessly longer than mine. By the time she stopped to wait up for me, she had already reached the edge of the forest.

“Arlania!” I whined, bending over to grasp my stomach and gasp for air.

“No shoes again, Linzaryn?” Arlania gave me an innocent look.

“I didn’t have time!” I snapped rudely, “You wouldn’t wait up!”

“Well, why do you always have to be falling behind?” she was teasing, but her words hurt because they were true. We were twins, but that didn’t mean we always felt the same age. Sometimes, I found it hard to believe we were related at all.

Arlania flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder, and we set off together, across the amber carpet of pine needles and into the forest. I breathed in the crisp mountain air and sighed in satisfaction. The sharp smell of pine seemed to fill my soul. I always felt most at home here, in the evergreen forests surrounding the Valley.

The Valley, as our small village was inventively named, was nestled in a valley in the middle of a ring of mountains; so remote and cut off from the rest of the world that no one even knew what country it belonged to. Not that anyone cared either. The Valley was not a wealthy town, and its inhabitants lived simple lives without affecting the lives of anyone else. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was soon to change, and indeed, those days were coming when two sisters from the Valley would change the world forever.

I felt that humming in my veins again.

“This way,” I said, veering to the left toward a clearing in the trees, following the vibrating in my blood. Arlania turned sharply to walk behind me without question. Only Arlania and I knew this, but I had an extraordinary gift. I couldn’t explain it, but if I listened to that buzz inside of me, it always led me exactly where I needed to be. Rounding the corner, I spotted a cluster of small brown mushrooms. A smile broke across my face.

“Look,” I said, “moonroot!” I bent over and started gently plucking the mushrooms out of the ground, “I wonder why they’re called that,” I said, gesturing to the obviously rootless mushrooms. Arlania just gave me a quizzical look and produced a small piece of paper from her satchel.

“Linzie, moonroot isn’t on the list,” she told me gently. I looked up and raised my eyebrows at her. The humming in my veins had stopped as soon as I touched the fungus.

“It is now,” I declared, and gave her a meaningful look.

Arlania shrugged as if to say ‘fine, I trust you.’ Out loud she said, “We need stixory, flameweed, lemonite grass…”

“Hey, one thing at a time!” I interrupted, “What was the first one, stixory?” I didn’t wait for her to answer because I was already marching off in the direction that I knew would lead me to the next herb.

The list Arlania held was an inventory of all the plants our parents needed. They owned a medicine shop in town that had been in our family for generations. Sometimes, mother sent Arlania and I to collect herbs for her.

A loud squirrel chattering from the treetops above caused both of us to look up abruptly. Arlania had her bow raised and an arrow out of her quiver before I could blink. She pulled the string back with a loud twang, and in a heartbeat the squirrel was dead on the forest floor.

Arlania turned to me and smiled, “Looks like it’s squirrel stew for dinner,” she said. In two strides, she reached the dead squirrel, brushed some pine needles off the tail, then swung it unceremoniously over her shoulder. I wrinkled my nose. Squirrel stew was not one of my favorites. Nevertheless, I felt a surge of pride for my sister, who was the best archer in all the Valley, and (unlike my gift, which I kept punctiliously secret) everyone knew it.

By the time we had gathered all the items from the list, we were sweaty and tired, and the sky was growing dark. Arlania closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

She frowned, “It’s going to rain,” she said softly, and for the first time, I looked up and saw ominous clouds growing in the sky above the tops of the tall evergreen forest.

I copied her and sniffed the air. “We’d better head back,” I replied, but the minute the words had left my mouth, they were drowned out by a deep rumble of thunder. A flash of blue lightning jolted out of the sky and struck a tree to my left with an earsplitting crack. In a blaze of light, it caught on fire, strong branches crackling and green needles withering away into black ash. Arlania grabbed my hand, and we ran blindly away from the burning tree. I did not look back, but I heard it fall with an enormous crash, and I saw our shadows grow longer before us as the fire behind us leaped higher. Suddenly, the sky broke open and cold rain hit me from all directions, but still we ran.

We ran until we burst out of the forest and found ourselves staring up at the great gray mountains, jagged and rough like spikes and scales, illuminated in the repetitive flashes of lightning.

“Arlania, we have to go back!” I screamed above the thunder. If we had reached the mountains, that meant home was in the opposite direction.

My sister shook her shining wet head at me and shouted back to make herself heard, “It’s at least five miles away, Linzaryn, we can’t travel that far in a storm like this!”

I felt my head spinning and my heart rate quickened.

“Linzie, you need to find shelter!” Arlania looked frantic, “There must be some sort of cave or something!” I lifted my head and felt the rain beat my cheeks. The vibrating started again, stronger this time. Towards the mountains, half a mile away, there was a cave; I could feel it.

“No,” I whispered, “We cannot go there.” As sure as I was that the cave existed, I was just as sure that we should not go there, could not go there.

“Linzie!” my sister screamed my name at me, and I looked at her wet face and drenched hair.

“This way,” I said miserably, and took off at a run toward the cave.

The cave was small but dry, with a gently sloping ceiling that blocked out the wind. As soon as we ducked our heads and entered, the sound of the rain calmed to a dull drumming on the rocks overhead. I could hear Arlania’s breathing echo across the cave walls as she attempted to catch some air. I collapsed against the stone behind me and tried to calm my heart, which was beating unnaturally fast, and not just from strenuous running. “Oh, please not now,” I whispered to myself, begging the vibrating in my veins to stop; but it only increased, faster and stronger with every breath.

Arlania wiped her face and stood, but she had to duck her head to keep from hitting the roof.

“Wow,” she gasped, and ran her fingers across the top of the cave, which was covered in beautiful abstract carvings. The dread in my gut grew.

“We need to get out of here,” I said, my voice echoing across the chamber and making me quite afraid.

“Why?” Arlania gave me a puzzled look, ”It’s dry, and besides, there’s nowhere else to go.” She turned her eyes back to the carving, “This is amazing” she said.

I stood and stared at the curlicues and circles and vines that covered almost the entire roof. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, my heart jumped at what I saw. All the patterns and lines merged to create one form: the body of a dragon in mid-flight, wings spread and mouth wide open.

For a moment, I was paralyzed with fear, and could only stare. Dragons aren’t real, I told myself, but the thrumming in my blood said otherwise.

Arlania, always braver than I, reached out her pointer finger and gently touched the circular image of the dragon’s eye. And then, three things happened all at once.

I shouted, “Arlania, NO!” and felt a sudden jolt of pain through my heart, at the same time as the floor collapsed, and my sister fell screaming down.

I stood staring at the hole in the stone floor where Arlania had stood only seconds before. It was so deep and dark that I could not see anything. Every instinct and uncanny sense I had was begging me not to go down there, warning me to stay where I was, or maybe even run as fast and as far away as I could; but there was something stronger in me that wouldn’t allow me to leave my sister, so I bent my legs, closed my eyes, and jumped down the hole.

I felt like I was falling for a very long time, and I braced myself for the impact when I would hit the bottom. It did come, and my whole body shook with the force of it, but I found myself standing on my feet and staring up at the trickle of light coming from the gap far above me. It had been a long fall, and I did not understand how anyone could have survived it, let alone land standing up and unharmed as I was. But I did not ponder this for long, because when I looked at the ground, there was Arlania, laying in a crumpled heap and not moving.

For one awful moment, I thought she was dead, but as I fell on my knees next to her, I saw that she was breathing. A loud cracking noise erupted above me with vehement force, and I looked up again to see the stones around the hole crumbling and falling. I grabbed Arlania by the arms and dragged her away with all the strength I had. The ceiling fell fast, and several stones crashed into a heap before me. I could see the broken remains of the dragon carving on top of the pile. More dim light streamed down through the now-larger hole in the ceiling, and suddenly I could see just how huge and deep the new cave was. Realization dawned on me: we were inside the mountain, and it was hollow.

“Arlania!” I fell to her side again and felt sick when I saw that her head was cut open and bleeding. Tears blurred my eyes, and I was only partially conscious of the ever-increasing drumming of my heart. I laid a frantic hand over her wound to try to stop the bleeding and pleaded with all my heart for her to live.

One long, terrible minute passed. I didn’t know what else to do, and I was too upset to think straight. And then, when I was almost sure that she was dead, she stirred, sat up, and said my name.

“Linzie?”

“Arlania! Are you okay?” What a stupid question, I thought as soon as I had said it, she certainly was not. But Arlania nodded as if she was okay, then glanced at my blood-stained hand and gasped.

“Linzaryn! Are you bleeding?!”

“No,” I said, “You are,” but when I looked at the spot where she had been hurt, there was no wound and no sign of blood. I gaped at her head, bewildered. Surely, I hadn’t imagined it. I glanced down at my own hand again and was suddenly very afraid of it.

Rain came pouring in through the gap in the ceiling, drenching the pile of stones and making the floor glossy and slick. I could see a small slice of the sky through the hole. The moon was round and eerily blue above me.

Nothing made sense. Mountains weren’t hollow and it wasn’t possible to fall down a two-story hole and land on your feet. Your sister couldn’t be bleeding to death one moment and completely fine the next. But as I looked at my own hand, I had a sudden dreadful feeling that it all was real, and it was all because of me.

“Linzie?” Arlania’s face had concern written all over it, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I lied, but my face felt bone white.

“We need to get out of here,” Arlania said. Just the sound of her voice made the chamber feel huge and empty. Looking around, though, I could see no way out. The hole we had fallen through was too high above to climb through, and everywhere else was consumed by a pitch-black darkness that displayed little hope. I felt Arlania grab my hand, and I studied her moonlit face for a moment. Shadows rested in the grooves of her skin, but there was no fear in it, no pain, no doubt; her blue eyes shone with a courage that I envied. Looking into her eyes, I understood: even if there was no way out, everything would be all right as long as I had my sister by my side. I let myself breathe and focused on the feeling of relief at not being alone.

We walked into the darkness together, feeling our way around with our hands and feet. The mountain appeared to be entirely empty, but we just kept walking. A chilly silence enveloped the cavern, and the cold bit into my bare feet. I wished I had worn shoes.

I didn’t know how far or for how long we walked, but eventually I felt before my outstretched hand a solid wall of stone. Arlania took a match out of her satchel and lit it. I recoiled back at the sight of another dragon carved on the wall.

There was a dusty, ancient- looking torch attached to the stone. Arlania lifted it in her hands and lit it. The circle of light widened; shadows and light danced up around us. Everywhere I could see, the wall was covered in dragons: flying and fighting and playing and breathing fire, all captured in the stone as if frozen in time. They were beautiful, and breath-taking. Arlania and I stared in hushed silence at the magnificent carvings.

In the silence, I became suddenly aware of an odd drumming noise. It sounded exactly like a heartbeat, but it was not coming from me. It was coming from the mountain.

If Arlania noticed it, she said nothing about it. Instead, she turned around and gazed to the left.

“Stairs,” she said.

There were stairs, lots of them, carved out of the same stone the mountain was made of. They were jagged and uneven, curving up and continuing higher than the ring of torchlight would permit me to see. I wondered who had made those stairs, and who had left the torch, and why the wall had dragons all over it. My heart was now beating so fast, I was afraid it would explode or stop altogether. I felt the humming in my veins stronger than ever before.

All I could do was stand and stare, and I probably would have stayed there, undecided for my entire life, had Arlania not chosen for me. Without a word, she took my hand and led me up the steps, holding the torch out in front of us.

The stone stairs were hard and cold and uneven beneath my bare feet as we climbed. There was no railing on the stairs, and I could not see the ground below us, only an empty sort of darkness.

Right when I thought they would never end, the stairs stopped suddenly, and we stepped up unto a large flat platform. This platform had no railing either, but was suspended in the middle of the cave, seemingly leading nowhere. It was round, and about the width of a small house. Angled above us to the right, I could see the hole we had fallen through.

“It’s a dead end,” Arlania said, disappointment clear in her voice. But I was not listening to her, because I had caught sight of a small, raised pillar in the center of the platform. I approached it. It was almost half as tall as I was, and flat on the top. Arlania walked closer to see, and the light from the torch flickered across the stone.

In the center of the pillar laid a very small round rock. It was a translucent crystal blue color, with cracks running through it like lightning, but the surface was smooth. I picked it up and held it in my palm. Suddenly I felt inside me a new rush of strength. My heart kept beating at a tremendous pace. I looked up at the hole above, at the rain pouring down through it, at the storm still raging outside.

A bolt of lightning came down through the hole in a flash, and I saw it coming directly toward me, but for once in my life, I was not afraid. I dropped the stone and held out my hands and let out everything I had always forced to stay inside. The power surged through me in a blaze of light, then out of me, and around me.

The lightning never hit me. I felt an invisible shield form around me and my sister beside me, and the lightning struck it, but it did not come through. Arlania’s eyes were wide with fear, but she was not looking at the lightning. She was looking at me.

The lightning flashed all around the shield in crackling bolts of blue electricity, then it disintegrated away, and was silent. I let out another flash of light and the shield disappeared.

For a moment, I stared at where the lightning had been, until I finally turned around to face Arlania. But Arlania was not there. Instead, I found myself looking directly into the snout of a very large dragon.

It was a deep shade of purple, so dark it was almost black, with flecks of gold like dust across its scales. It was three times as tall as me, and I craned my neck to look at its head, which was crowned with majestic golden horns. Its eyes were a deep blue. Of course, I had never seen a dragon before, and I was terrified, but I felt that somehow, the dragon was just as scared as I was, and maybe… there was something even familiar in its face.

Then I looked down at the ground, where the torch was laying on its side and slowly burning out. Beside the torch lay a little heap of Arlania’s clothes, along with her satchel and bow and arrow. I looked back at the dragon, anger flaring up in my chest.

“What have you done with my sister!?” I screamed at it. But then our eyes met, and as I gazed into the dragon’s great blue iris, dread settled inside of me. I realized that the question wasn’t what had the dragon done to my sister; it was what had I done to my sister.

Because the dragon was my sister. And it was all my fault.

“Oh Arlania,” I whispered, and my voice cracked painfully, “What have I done?”