Another couple of years later, I was teaching the curious Sihea about dragons. We were alone in the home of her family because her parents had taken the bad habit of using me as a caretaker for the child. I didn’t mind, if I wanted to shirk the responsibility, I just needed to say Cirruin had woken up. Not that I would do it, though, for I loved Sihea in a way similar to how Cirruin loved Mardhaka: at a distance, with pride and infinite endearment.
“And, Terus, how do dragons find dragonettes to make dragonlings?” She eventually asked. “If you lay eggs like chicken, then I assume rooster dragons need hen dragons, right?”
“I… have never been compared to poultry before. That’s a first, Sihea.”
She smiled and emitted a mirthful whistle.
I decided It was my duty to continue. “Dragons are big, they are visible. And they are shiny, so to speak. Not a shine of light like gold or a mirror, mind you, but a shine of magic. So male dragons, when in want of a fiancée, search places where female dragons, like Mardhaka, and in every other way unlike Mardhaka—”
“Why are they unlike Mardhaka?” she interrupted me like she used to. I knew it wasn’t with the intention to disrespect me, but just a child’s natural curiosity, so I tried to not let it irk me.
“Mardhaka is… rather unorthodox in several of her pursuits. Do you think there are many dragoness that fly into cities whilst entirely covered in birds?”
After a moment of thinking, she answered. “No no.”
“Well, there are several things about her that are like that. Things about magic and lair choices. Things I cannot tell you, lest she gets mad. Because you don’t want to make a dragon mad, do you?”
She shook her head energetically. How dear was this child to me, with her big eyes full of innocence, with her rosy cheeks that inflated when she was mad, with Orphela’s face and Dariel’s expressions. With hands that belonged to neither of them completely, but were as deft as his when he was carving a piece of wood, or as hers when she was teaching me how to sew. Because Orphela taught me how to sew, reader. Cirruin is the only dragon that knows how to do such thing.
I miss those days with Sihea, where she asked for hours and I answered.
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The day before Sihea’s tenth birthday, Orphela had taken her for a ride through the countryside, and me and Dariel worked cleaning the house. We were swiping the wooden floors of the living when he stopped and began talking, seemingly out of nowhere.
“Terus, do you realize we know each other since more than a decade ago?”
I turned with a pained expression. He understood immediately.
“There’s this uncanny feeling about you. I know you are supposed to not age, but you are this… kind of caricature imposed onto the world. I see in you my lost youth, the years gone. Orphela is barren, my hands grow shaky, and you behave more like a man with each day,” he said with a somber tone, leaning onto his broom as though it were a cane.
“They were good years with you two, Dariel. And we still have many more to share!” I said, opening my hands and letting myself fall over the sofa, almost like a pebble rolling down a hillside. Almost.
“I have forty springs and I feel as if I had fifty. Poor Orphela tries and tries but she cannot crawl out of the hole the miscarriage shoved us into. Sihea considers you more of a father figure than me. You are no burden, Terus, you are helpful even, but I often wonder if our lives would be better if it had been another person, instead of Orphela, who met you on the market during that fate-defining day. “
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Silence, so precious, remained intact several seconds before, with my head lowered, I broke it. “I can dream you the most beautiful of flowers for your father. I can help strengthen the bond between you and your daughter. I can do it all once and again. I can build for you and Orphela a child of my very own nature to ease the pain of her infertility. I can pay in gold for the disgrace I have brought upon you.”
He shrugged.
“Don’t bother, water under the bridge. It’s just that sometimes it feels like you are one of those demons of the folklore that suck the life out of people by appealing to their baser needs. Can you forget this stupid babble and do me a small favor? check on Dusk, he has been sleeping a lot as of late and today he had problems to get down from the carriage, the old fellow. See if he has enough water in his bowl.”
I willed myself into the abandoned stable and there he was, Dusk, with his long mats of hair and empty, white stare. With cloudy eyes he turned at me, hearing but not seeing my figure.
“It’s me, Dusk, calm down.”
The dog licked his nose and settled his heavy head on his bed of straw, but not without whimpering in pain. Dusk ha not been blessed with an iron health. As of late, his had been more like paper. A doctor, common friend of the couple, had said the dog, like old people, had pain in his bones. Or so Orphela had told me a few months prior.
I imagined how it had to be to be Dusk. The light of the world had been robbed from him, painting his eyes with cataracts and leaving him to wander among shadows. Talking shadows of the people he loves and wishes to play with, while overtaken by a pain from inside that he doesn’t understand.
I willed myself back inside.
“In my opinion, Dusk is suffering as it has become normal.”
Dariel slapped me, making my head actually turn and my cheek to go hot and red. I fought the urge to restitute myself instantly. He looked like he needed to see me hurt a little, and for it to last.
“Don’t say that about my trusty companion! That dog is as strong as a maple plank. Soon he will be up and running again,” he lied to both of us, and I could see that he wanted to cry.
“Orphela is not here to witness your moment of humanity, Dariel. I won’t betray this secret. You can admit the dog is not long for this world.”
He stumbled over me and hugged my person like he wanted to mush my very bones, and he sobbed without much of a whine.
“That stupid dog is Sihea’s smile, and my trusty company when no one else is at home. I have seen Orphela forget the pain of the world while bathing him and cutting his dreads. And the only thing I can do, the thing most expect me to do, is to take a hammer and slam it upon his head to put him out of his pain. I see him wake up every day, I see him struggle to get better and live like he used too. That dog hasn’t accepted death, Terus, and I cannot give it to him. But he suffers, more and more every day, and my neighbors back in Zenvo expect me to act.”
“Then don’t. Dragons don’t believe pain is the sole measure of morality, and neither do I. Suffering is part of life, as much as pleasure is. Curses are, as well as blessings.”
I patted him in the back, reciprocating the hug, and, immediately after shifting out of his grasp, planted a kiss upon his brow.
“But is not right to let him keep on living. He doesn’t know it can end, Terus, he’s a dog. Only a dog. And even then, I cannot sacrifice him.”
“Then don’t. He’s your dog. A bit of mine, perhaps, with how much that animal loves me, but mainly your dog. If Dusk has the will to live despite the pain, why do you consider the fair course is to give him death?”
“He barely walks.”
“He finds the strength to stand and move a body in which he is not welcome anymore. If that dog needs to be sacrificed, so do half the old people of Zenvo. And if you want me to give Mardhaka a word and purge the City, you only need to say so.”
He pushed me apart and retreated.
“You wouldn’t.”
“You are right. But then, why would you with the dog? I won’t let you kill Dusk, as long as Cirruin dreams of me. ”
Sobs turned to laughter and he hugged me again, lifting me from the floor. “You are featherweight! Thank you, Terus!” then he let me go, visibly ashamed. “And forget the demon thing. My insecurities are no problem of yours.”
“No worrying about it, Dariel. I am here to listen and learn. Everything is a lesson, everything is valuable.”
“Can you finish swiping around? I need to check on the dog by myself, and I don’t get to blink from place to place like you do.”
My lips became a thin line as I grasped the broom as tight as a I could. “I will try, but I can make no promises.”
With renewed strength, my friend slapped my shoulder playfully. “That’s the unreliability for mundane tasks I expect from you, friend. Don’t burn the house down and I’ll be satisfied with the results.”
I, somehow, managed to obey that last order and the countryside house stood proud another day.