The Age of Metamorphosis

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. There were lots of things that had never been, that were real now as Meg’s boots squelching in unseen mud puddles. Even so, the newest Emergents rocked the world’s boat before their wings flapped a beat.

Meg had found a place to watch the dragons from. She was careful for a time, not going too often; but the pull of them had been growing stronger. She of all people ought to be allowed a visit. She'd said as much, but the keepers were having none of it. With the council closing the pass, she’d had to find a route no one would notice. The moon was nearing full, and the snow fully melted on the lower slopes.

She told Brax she’d meet him at his back gate- it was on her way out of the settlement anyway. I wonder if he’ll make it this time, she thought as she crept through the shadows, and remembered to try not to look as though she was creeping. She herself had not slept a wink, only waited for the sounds of wakeful parents to quiet down for a time, and watched the moon rise. She had convinced her brother to let her use his sailor’s scope tonight, to look at the moon through her window, she’d said. She wrapped it in a lite blanket and stuffed it into her pack with a little twinge of guilt. The thing was very precious to him. I’ll take good care of it, she thought firmly.

“Brax. Are you there?” she whispered, only half expecting an answer. He’d missed twice already. “Yah- I’m here.” Brax had the loudest whisper of anyone she knew. She’d had to explain to him the point was for other people not to hear you. It was a sign of his tiredness that he said nothing more until they made it a good way up into the forest, past the edge of the main settlement. In the looming shadows well beyond earshot of anyone, she paused for a drink of water.

“You think we’ll really be able to see them?” he asked through panting breaths. “I mean, it’s pretty dark, even with the moon and all…” he said doubtfully. The shadowy forest did not feel entirely welcoming.

“Yes, I told you, their nest has a clearing around it. They just took down whole trees until they had enough for the thing. It’s beautiful. You’ll see.” He did not answer, and she wondered if he didn’t believe her, or had gotten scared. “It’s ok if you want to go back. You could still find your way without me from here.” Probably, she thought. Eventually.

“No no. I’m coming,” he said with sleepy resolve. They began making their way up the steep slopes through the wood, bright moonlight cut with deep shadows. After a time he asked, “Meg, you really believe only a few things used to cacoon? I mean really, just bugs? Even if they were beautiful, I mean… that’s hard to imagine.”

Brax was still having a hard time letting go of the point. Since the dragons emerged, the memory keepers had spent a lot of their lesson time on the history of cacooning. The differences between chrysalis, cacoon, mycelial stowing, and a whole host of finer points in terminology that were lost on Meg- and Brax. He said ca-coon now instead of “cooning,” at any rate.

“I’m sure they must be right, Brax. Things were just way different before the ‘clysm. Lots of things.” The Cataclysm was a harrowing topic, and the only time she was grateful for keeper Stylus’s dry way of delivering information. It was hard to imagine the sheer number of people that had lived, the plants and animals, how many of them had died. She paused the upward march, and tried for her best impersonation of keeper Stylus. “It was an extinction event of unprecedented proportion. Humanity,” she paused to clear her throat as the stuffy keeper did, “…barely recovered.” Her nasaly tone was too exaggerated but Brax laughed aloud, and they carried on with their impersonations up the increasingly steep slope, keeping the dark at bay.

“Cacoons! Cacoons as we know them emerged as a major aspect of the mechanisms of evolution after the Cataclysm.” Meg laughed hard- Brax was getting the knack of the keepers’ over pronouncing everything. “This has caused innovation at exponential rates in comparison with previous eras.” He made as if blowing his nose into a kercheif. She laughed so hard she had to stop walking for being doubled over from it. It was good to forget for a moment- the pull of the dragons had been distracting her day and night. Brax made her feel normal, at least for a while. “There are many types of cacoons, and cacooning processes. Emergents are perhaps the most exciting example...”

He balked only a little at the part near the top where they had to climb out a tree limb to get up a big boulder. “Really? How do we get back down?” he asked skeptically.

“Same way as up,” she told him. She had told him just that more than once, with a variety of consequences. Her grin was taunting. He held his tongue, but gave her a look that meant she’d hear about it later. She had told him there was one little climbing part.

The moon was right overhead as they came out of the forest near the rim. She had landed them perfectly, where a hundred paces past the forest edge, a large flat stone jutted out over the cliff, big enough for bellying up to the edge with no crumbly gravel or slippery slope- leading to a very long- and fast- way down. “Oh this is perfect!” Meg whispered. Brax let out a “woah”, gaining him a ferocious shushing. “This is where we have to whisper again. Who knows how far they can hear,” she said, gesturing toward the Valley. Brax nodded vigorously, lips pursed. Exciting as it was, the dragons were enormous, could fly and breathe fire, and who knew what else. No one so far had had a lot of luck in their encounters.

She got them each a little winter apple from her pack, took a pull of water, and rebundled her things so the scope would be on top. As she handed him the apple, he asked, “Have you had any new dreams?” Brax’s whisper really was painfully loud. She could feel the dragons, was so aware of them. “Yes of course. I’ve been dreaming of them every night.” Dreaming with them… “It’s hard to explain. I feel like I’m seeing through their eyes, and also seeing them through mine. Ever since I touched the cacoon, and knew they were dragons…” She trailed off. It had been a powerful experience. She still did not know entirely what to make of it. It was like they had wakened in the same moment she touched the thing. She had told the plant maestra right then, and then the keepers, and so many more… but Brax was her main confidant, even if there were parts she’d still kept to herself. It just felt too private.

He waited patiently for her to go on. “And… and I can feel the village. And I know where the herds of goatlings, are. And the sea… and about… the other dragons.”

“You know-” He raised his voice, unable to maintain the elusive whisper.

“SHHH! Whispering only Brax. Please.”

“You know where the other dragons are?” he asked in only slightly shushed tones. “How many are there? Are they like ours?” he was getting too excited for quiet, and they were out of the trees now.

“Shh. C’mon.” She led them out to the huge flat boulder that hung out over the cliff’s edge, and stepped gingerly onto it. It was big as a house and their weight would not make a difference, but still they got to their knees and crawled slowly toward the edge, scooching on bellies for the last bit, until they could see into the bottom. “You see that circle down there, the clearing in the forest?” Brax nodded. His breath caught as he spotted the thing. Woven of whole pine trees in a spiraling basket, it looked no bigger than a hummer’s nest in her palm from here. The moonlight glinted there, gold, and bronze. The pair would be sleeping, then. They weren’t always, seeming to have no real preference for moving about in day or night, as far as she could tell.

“I’m not sure Brax… in the dreams, they all kind of merge together, or something like that- the dragons do. There are other places I get the feeling of, not like seeing, exactly. And… and I think they have eggs. The golden one had eggs, Brax. There are babies. So they probably won’t re-cacoon, they’re just going to stay as they are. They’re here for good, if they make it.” His eyes were discs of wonder in the moonlight. When they make it, she prayed silently.

Meg pulled her brother’s scope from her pack, training it on the nest. The golden dragon was curled sleeping in the middle, the bronze perched on it’s edge watching over her. She could feel the eggs, three of them, as if they were under her own belly. Precious. Warm. Safe.

The golden dragon opened one eye, a slit of brighter light in her glow- and looked right at Meg. She inhaled sharply, chilly gooseprickles washing over her. She took the scope from her eye, mouth agape. Brax demanded in his barely a whisper voice, “What?”

She felt the dragons knowing they were there. Knowing they were not a threat. The bronze did not have to look; he had seen what the gold saw. How could that be? How could she know that?

Heart in her throat, she handed the scope to Brax. “Here, have a look” she said, not sure she could say what just happened. Before she released the scope from her hand, she remembered to admonish him, “Be careful with it. Really careful. My brother will skin me if anything happens to it. You can change the focus like this.” She showed him the way of twisting it in and out.

It took a moment for him to get the way of using the thing. Then he froze, not breathing, and she knew he’d got them in focus. “They glow, Meg. I think they make their own light.” Taking back up with Stylus’s accent he whispered, “bioluminescence” and stifled a laugh. He looked a little longer, then handed the scope back to Meg. “Thanks Meg. I think this is the best adventure you’ve ever taken me on,” he said, looking up at her. “You okay Meg?” She realized she was crying, and wiped her face on her sleeve.

“Yah. Thanks. They’re just so beautiful.” She remembered the news her brother had brought back from the docks last week. “How could anyone want to kill them? Or steal their eggs? They’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Or felt, she thought. Or dreamed.

“Well, our council is smarter than that, Meg. They’re protecting ours. Our sacred Valley, our dragons. They’re keeping people from coming up here to mess with them.” That last bit sounded only just a little guilty. “I’m glad,” he went on, “even the minister says they’re part of the plan, part of the sacred blueprint. The great intelligence knows what it’s doing…”

Suddenly the bronze leapt into the air, flapping his wings, climbing into the night sky. Brax and Meg fell silent, and Meg trained the scope back to the nest. The gold was standing now, alert, tail swishing. Her eyes were the brightest thing in the night. Three perfect eggs lay beneath her, cozied together in fresh pine boughs.

“Meg, maybe we ought to…”

The bronze roared, a peircing sound that made their hands fly to their ears. The stone beneath them shook, their bones shook, the whole world shook. Flames erupted down near the pass, at the entrance to the Valley. Men screamed from down there, and another kind of thunder filled the night. Meg tried to look out and see what was happening, ears ringing, heart pounding its way out of her chest. “No!” she cried. The bronze roared again, incapacitating her. Brax was yelling something now, panic plain. “Meg come on, we have to go!” He had taken hold of her hand, was trying to pull her away from the edge. The boulder they were on had shifted, slid a little further out over the edge. Meg looked back at Brax, her eyes struggling to focus.

There were men, lots of men coming out of the forest, toward the cliff edge. Toward them. What are they doing up here? Meg wondered. How did they find my spot?

“The scope. Where is the scope?” She looked around desperately, Brax still pulling on her hand, yelling something. It was there, with her little winter apple, at the edge of the boulder. She got up to her knees, reaching for it, leaning against Brax’s pull.

The golden leapt up from the nest to join the bronze in the fight, sending Meg’s senses reeling. That mamma dragon sent out a scream of her own, higher than the bronzes, that jarred everything loose. The boulder shifted, the apple toppled out of sight, and her hand slipped from Brax’s, sending her tumbling to the edge.