“He’s late.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Yeah, but, he’s never late”
“I’m well aware, Flowerform.”
‘A path rarely walked, dappled in the summer sun. Green and still’, was the bearer of an awkwardly long name. She hadn’t managed to settle it until she was almost 18, going through many different variations before then. Her mother had called her Dapplegreen, her friends had called her Pathwalker.
She had always liked that second name more, but even the idea of it had given her mother panic attacks, as if the words themselves were a prophecy of her eventual disappearance.
In the end, the simple option had appealed to her, and she had settled on Summersun. A bright and happy name, ripped with force from the nostalgic melancholy that had apparently afflicted her mother upon her birth.
“But…” Her assistant tried again, trailing off as Summersun shot him a look. He flinched and looked away instead, towards the distinct lack of dragon in the sky.
“I’m perfectly aware that he’s late. I’m also aware that he’s never late. Can you give it a rest for just a moment?” She sighed in exasperation, realising even as she said it that she was probably being harsher than was called for.
It was 8am, according to the clock above the town hall, and ‘Crests the Sky on Wings of Knowledge’ was almost two hours late. Summersun had been up and working since before 4, making last minute preparations and dealing with those troublemakers who had only just picked up on the fact that the dragon was coming to town, and who just had to have their parcel or letters or gods-forbid child sent to the other side of the world right now!
Never-mind that the letter sacks had been packed days ago, the parcels stacked and arranged weeks ago, and his next destination probably worked out before she was born. No, couldn’t she just find one teensy little spot, for them!?
With a sigh, she stopped staring up at the clock, instead choosing to rub her eyes with the heels of her hands until bright colours filled her vision.
“I’m sorry." She kept rubbing her eyes, "I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I’m sure he’ll turn up soon.”
There was no response from her assistant as she moved her hands away, blinking in the light and watching as the colours of the world drained back in.
The area they were standing in was a wide grassy circle, surrounded by a waist-high hedge. Normally scattered with cushions and light wooden benches at this time of the year, today all of that had been cleared out in favour of bags, boxes and mail-carts. Around the edges were a few hangers-on, leaning against the dense hedge or sitting on the discarded benches. There would be more later in the morning, depending on how late he was, but for now it was relatively quiet.
“It’s not your fault, I’m sorry.” She tried again. Wincing as her assistant rubbed his own eyes, and not because of tiredness, despite the fact he’d been awake as long as she had.
“I didn’t mean to shout at you…” She shook her head, reaching out and putting a hand on his shoulder, hesitating for a second, before drawing him into an awkward hug.
Flowerform was only young. This was his first time working on dragon-day, and the pressure over the past two weeks had been intense. “Look,” she patted his back, before pushing him away, “even if he’s gone completely missing, that’s not our fault. Nobody can blame us.”
He turned a reddened eye towards her, his bottom lip held tight in his teeth, and she didn’t know what to say. She’d never made anyone cry before. Around them people lounged about, yawning, either ignorant of or ignoring their small drama. Some were triple checking the letter sacks, or messing with the oilcloths set out in case of rain, but most were simply waiting.
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On one bench, against the hedge and dressed in a well-starched and very formal dress, was the representative from the Big school over on the north side of the city. Their back was straight, but their eyes were on the sky and their face tighter and more worried than she’d ever seen it before. One day, Summersun had vowed to herself upon first seeing them, she would have posture that good, but so far it hadn’t materialised.
If ‘Crests The Skies on Wings of Knowledge’ turned up, and the child wasn’t with him, life was going to get complicated very fast. Not that it had ever happened, but to her knowledge, he’d also never been two hours late before.
Her scanning of the area didn’t reveal anyone capable of helping, so she tried words again. “Nothing we do here now is gonna matter. He either turns up or he doesn’t, and everyone knows their jobs.”
Flowerform sniffed, rubbing his eyes and nose with what had, at 4am this morning, been a crisply ironed shirt sleeve, and she felt the guilt settle like a stone in her stomach. No, she had screwed up. Bugger the dragon, she was going to fix this.
“Never-mind all this rubbish, they can cope without us for an hour or so. I know a place nearby, let’s go get some chocolate.” She patted him awkwardly on the back again, already leading him towards a gap in the hedge and utterly out of her depth. “Come on, let’s go.”
-
The shop was clean and modern, and although she’d never been inside before, she’d heard good things.
They were sitting inside at a table by one of the windows, so they could see when the form of the dragon appeared on the horizon and react accordingly. The glass in the window was made of small flat panes, through which the image of the outside was only very slightly distorted, and the first time she had walked past, it had fascinated her almost as much as the drinks. It was like looking through winter ice, and that first time she had placed her hand upon it, expecting it to be cold to the touch.
Sitting between the two of them was a pot of chocolate, hot and thick and sweet, and mostly gone. Flowerform was rolling his empty mug between his hands, still refusing to meet her eyes. At least he’d stopped crying, the caffeine and sugar working it’s magic.
Gently, Summersun tried to coax some words out of him, anything except this heavy silence.
“So” she reached over, giving what was left of the chocolate a stir, “Have you seen the dragon before?”
Flowerform shrugged, opening his mouth and then closing it again, before looking grumpily down into his empty cup, his hair obscuring his face. The mugs were stoneware, unfashionable, but thick and warm. “I guess” he finally muttered, “saw him land once, when I was a kid.”
It took her brain a moment to process his words, through the combination of his mumbling and lack of facial expression, and she took the chance to pour them both another half-cup of chocolate, emptying out the pot.
“A good experience?” more coaxing. Gods, she was bad at this.
“I guess,” he said muttered, taking a sip of the rapidly cooling chocolate, “It…” he paused, taking another sip before finishing the sentence, “it was the best thing I’d ever seen. It was proper magic.”
She nodded, letting him speak.
“It was like, hmp”, Flowerform looked up from his cup and out the window, not sure how to put it into words. “It was raining bad, and there was only the workers there, no other kids.” He nodded to himself, “then, the dragon came down out of the clouds, and I could feel the mana washing off him like…”
He shrugged, gazing up at the empty sky, unable to explain it any better than that. “My ma said that magic comes from dragons. That they live high up, in the sea above the sky, and that 'Crests the Sky on Wings of Knowledge' is a gift from them to us.”
Summersun disputed this, having seen the records, but let him carry on.
“She said the gods lured him down to us, to remind us that magic was more than growing plants and changin’ stuff.”
He gestured towards the chocolate pot and his empty mug as he spoke, as if that meant something.
“I dunno if she’s right. She also thinks there’s tiny people who live in the walls of our house, and I’m pretty sure those are solid stone.” He smiled slightly, finally looking at her face, “She leaves out little bits of bread for ‘em, and brandy on Midwinter.”
“Do they take them?” Summersun enquired curiously.
He shrugged, smiling and crinkling his eyes like a child who knows a secret you don’t, “I think we’ve got mice.”
She smiled back, laughing and draining the last of her drink. Her grandmother had believed in similar things, leaving bread and stock out in the evenings for what she called “the fae”, although even she herself had seen the hodgehegs queuing up at their back door each night.
The atmosphere of the shop was warm but airy, and they sat and chatted for a while longer, discussing their elderly relatives as the day slowly heated up around them. The building was designed with a good through-draft, filling the room with the scent of flowers and fresh cut grass from the greenway outside.
Through the window she could see other patrons sitting in the small garden out the back, enjoying the the warm weather with food and coffee or chocolate. And up there, in the sky, she could see a familiar looking shape, growing larger even as she watched, the sun glinting off silver scales.
He was late, but he was here. Time to go back to work.