The desert was just as teeth-shattering cold by night as it was skin-melting hot by day. Meya had tucked her blanket and shawls around Coris, yet he was still trembling as he hunched and cowered under two layers of blanket. In the end, she pushed her mattress up against his and lay with her back to his chest, warming his feeble heart with her heat.
Between her fingers, the Nostran dragon's eye glowed in the gloom, answering the light from Meya's own eyes. She lowered it into the bowl and watched as it bobbed and revolved in the disturbed water, and allowed the present world to drain away from her consciousness. Since she'd left training early, might as well do some catching up so she'd have more tales to share with the other Greeneyes tomorrow.
Night was swallowed by day. Carpets of fabric replaced by that of lush grass. Surrounding her was blue sky, her mother, and her quarrelsome siblings, as they rode the wind towards a looming pillar of clouds.
The warm updraft under her belly inflated the flaps of leather sprouting from her back, keeping her afloat before vanishing. Meya felt a lurching sensation behind her navel as she plummeted through thin air. The baby dragon whose memories she was inhabiting showed no fear, however. With a swooping beat of its wings, she was propelled back above the wind.
The sun emerged from behind a veil of clouds and her metal scales soaked up its rays. Its warmth spread through her veins and inundated every sinew of her muscles, diluting the fatigue accumulated over hours of flight. The sun really was their source of energy, mused Meya. She wondered how far, if at all, she would be able to fly at night.
A shrill scream pierced the calm, jolting Meya from the lull of the cool breeze and the sunlight's embrace. Its cry ricocheted in her skull and rang in her eardrums long after it had died. A second cry followed, then a third, a fourth. Behind her, her dragon mother moaned in agony. Her five wee dragon siblings thrashed and tumbled in panic, screeching for the call to stop.
At long last, their mother hurtled towards the earth, screaming for them to follow. As Meya dove after her waving tail, sunlight glanced off her silvery scales into Meya's eyes, already smarting against the wind. Green grass rose up towards her. She fanned out her wings to soften her landing, the way her mother had taught her.
Her paw flattened hairy grass, slippery with a coating of dew. Meya looked up and saw four humans—two grown men, a boy around five years old, and a girl twice his age.
The younger, slighter man lowered an iridescent silvery tube from his lips—A Lattis whistle. From one shoulder hung a crossbow, and the other a quiver filled with bolts of Lattis. He turned to the broad-chested, scarred man in a flowing blue cape, reading off his journal.
"Number 47, Commander." He nodded towards the mother dragon, who had herded Meya and her siblings into the caves under her wings. The commander appraised her with a neutral gaze bordering on bored, "Finest dam we have in this sanctuary. This litter was sired by Gorgodev. Tall as three men and ten times as mighty in his prime. Best known for his performance during the War of—"
The commander rolled his eyes and waved, impatient.
"Spare me the pedigree, we're not looking for war-mount material." He snapped at the dragon keeper, who jolted into a hasty bow. He turned to the little boy with a halfhearted smile, as if he wished he could be anywhere but dragon-pet-shopping with his kids,
"Well, son? You like any of them?"
The boy stuck out his pink, slobbery lip as he eyed each of them, his fleshy hand twitching in his father's cloak.
"I want a golden one. They're all iron." He grumbled. His big sister crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.
"Feed it enough brass and it will turn golden, dunderhead." She spited, a flash of jealousy in her seemingly cavalier gaze.
"Shut up, Pissy." The boy shot back without pause. The girl's hands dropped to her sides and funneled into fists as she flushed scarlet, venting steam from her facial orifices.
"It's Pascentia!" She shrieked.
"Pissy Farty." The boy insisted with an innocent smile.
"Father!" Pascentia tugged at her father's cape, bobbing and whining. The commander heaved a sigh of annoyance then shot his son a glare—the boy had proceeded to squeezing his cheeks at his sister, mocking her.
"Perish it, Polus. Before I have second thoughts about your readiness." Polus sobered up at once at the prospect of his prize being forfeited. The commander thrust his hand towards the dragons, growling, "Well? Which one?"
As little Polus approached with a thumb in his mouth, Meya cowered against her mother's leg. She looked up for reassurance, and instead noticed a blackened scar on each side of her neck.
The baby dragon's memories enlightened her that they were where her mother had had her fuel nodes removed when she first came to the sanctuary. She couldn't breathe fire and burn these humans to smithereens.
Fear gripped her at the realization. Meya shrank closer to her mother's enveloping warmth. The boy screwed up his eyes, mouth and nose as he studied them one by one, left to right, then all over again. Just when Meya had begun to believe those eyes would just go on swiveling, they stopped at her. He raised his pudgy finger and jabbed in her direction.
The keeper marched forth and snatched her from her mother's protective shade.
No! Don't let them take me away! I want to fly with you! No!
Meya kicked and flailed as she screamed, straining in vain to reach her mother. Yet, the majestic dragoness could only look on, heartbroken, her eyes dimmed and full of sorrow.
Farewell, She crooned, Do not grief. You will see better days. And you will tell me all about it when we meet again.
She leaned forward on her haunches and touched her forehead to Meya's one last time. Flashes of the past consumed her. Dragons—hatchlings, fledglings and adolescents—carried, pulled, dragged away screaming and fighting from her helpless old mother's sight. This was not her first litter. Nor would it be the last to be taken from her.
The keeper flipped her on her back and parted her struggling legs with his gloved fingers.
"It's a female—a girl dragon." He called to Polus, "Would you like a boy dragon instead, young sir?"
"Nah, a girl is good." Polus shook his head, his words garbled by his thumb, "Now I can name it Pissy."
Pascentia gave a stifled shriek then flounced away to their waiting carriage. Meya continued to fight, bulging eyes staring unblinking at her mother, who never broke her gaze. The keeper stuffed her into a cage, uncaring. As the bars closed in between her and her mother, Meya rammed her horned head against them and screeched with all the air in her lungs.
"Oh, for Valtor's sake, make it quiet!" The commander snarled.
The cage door swung open with a creak, followed by a resounding clatter, then slammed shut once more. A familiar dull throb blossomed in Meya's head and expanded to fill her skull, threatening to burst it from within. In the dim light, she could just make out the nugget of silvery metal with its rainbow sheen sliding along to the tilt of the cage, as the keeper carried her towards the back of the commander's carriage.
Lattis.
The agony was such that Meya could barely feel the impact when the keeper thrust her onto the back seat next to Polus, who promptly began poking her with a twig he'd found during his brief return journey. The wheels jostled awake beneath her, and Meya surrendered herself to the claws of slumber dragging her under its waters.
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"Come on! Eat!"
The same whining voice lambasted her eardrums, followed by a rattle of metal. The human boy would often resort to kicking the cage in the hopes of rousing his new pet.
The wooden bowl clattered towards her, spilling a few coils of yellow-gold shavings.
"Eat, you stupid lizard! Caius brought his dragon to school yesterday and it's copper! So I told him my dragon's gold! I need you to turn gold, you hear? Eat!"
Polus underlined his command with yet another blow. To the little dragon whose head Meya was inhabiting, however, his noise was a mere distant ringing, too weak to penetrate the thick fog of doldrums she was mired in.
"You're boring!"
Polus gave up his cause for the day and stormed off. He lashed out at rocks, gardening equipment and his mother's flowers all the way, wrapping it up with a slam of the door.
Meya wondered if Coris was like this before he'd met her. They were probably fake tantrums in his case, though.
Day after day and night after night flowed by in dull flashes of disjointed memories, tinged by boredom, longing, hunger and fatigue. Meya wondered how the little dragon would ever survive into adulthood and fly over to burn Amplevale to the ground. The poor thing was taken from her mother too young. She wasn't wise enough, yet, to realize as Meya did, that her best chance of survival was to build up her strength and wait for an opportunity to escape.
Polus's loving care was not helping, either. Instead of rich, natural earth teeming with an array of essential minerals, the misguided boy had ordered his servants to serve his pet nothing but brass shavings, in the hopes she would turn gold.
Instead of open sky, the dragon was allotted an enclosure in the mansion's gardens. Though she had ample room to move around and spread her wings now, Meya knew the little one would soon outgrow it. And, size notwithstanding, dragons were never meant to be caged, were they? Why give them wings if they weren't meant to fly free, like those fearless sparrows pecking for ants in front of her cage?
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Worse, the boy's mother had ordered her paws wrapped in Lattis shackles. One day, in a similar manner to Meya's during the Famine, the little dragon's body had gone against her conscious desire to starve to death, and sucked nutrients straight out of the soil of the garden in her sleep. Polus's mother had screeched the house down when she woke up to her beloved tulips wilted in their beds.
From then on, it was either the brass shavings or nothing.
The swinging door had eased to a standstill when Meya felt tremors of scurrying footsteps. A shadow not unlike her mother's swooped over her. The little dragon raised its head with withering hope, which flickered out at the sight of a plump, clearly human maid girl.
Her dark, wavy hair fell to frame her face in tangled tresses from her bonnet. Her rosy cheeks were marred by angry, pus-filled pimples and smudged with soot. She carried with her the scent of rich soil. Meya looked down and saw the sack she held beside her leg.
The maid knelt before the cage. The flesh of her supple palm oozed in square blobs through the wire mesh as she pressed close. Her brown eyes were kind and filled with sadness.
"You poor thing. You miss your mama, don't you? Me too."
She settled on the manicured grass and wormed a pudgy finger through the eye of the net, rubbing Meya between the horns. Meya had just closed her eyes halfway when she withdrew and turned to fumble with the sack's drawstring. With a mighty heave, she swung the open mouth of the sack at the cage. Soft black earth tumbled down in clots.
"Here. Fill up quick. Don't leave no trace." She whispered urgently as she rammed the sack against the net, urging more earth to fall in. Her eyes flicked over to meet Meya's puzzled gaze. They were filled with determination.
"You have to live, little dragon. Tis the only way you'll get to see your mama again."
The maid rose to her feet, dusting off her dress with her free hand. When she turned back for one last, harried smile, their eyes met once more. This time, the little dragon delved deep into those twinkling irises.
Glimpses of another's life consumed them. A peaceful people with a culture of vibrant colors, surrounded by nature. A merry home bursting with grandparents, parents, cousins and siblings. All consumed by the red of flames and black of smoke. Screams of terror segued into the drone of children reciting Nostran values, tears glistening on the pages of their books.
The deluge of memories ended. Meya was back in her cage inside the little dragon's head once more. The maid had long bustled away. Unlike Meya, the little dragon was too young to understand what had happened, of course, but she sensed the maid's pain, and found her own pain within it.
One inch at a time, she dragged herself forward. For the first time, she realized just how tired and hungry she was. With her paws covered, she'd have to eat the soil with her mouth and digest with her bowels filled with bubbling acid. It would take much longer for the nutrients to absorb, but she was in no hurry, anyway.
As the little dragon lapped up the nutritious soil, Meya felt the gritty soil tickle her throat as it inched down, and smelt its mushy, earthy scent. Yet, it left no taste behind in her mouth. Instead, she heard the choir of a dozen metals reverberating in her head.
Like Lattis, all metals emit an energy of their own. Each with a different feel. Each with a different color. Each with a different voice.
So, this is how dragons taste. With song.
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The maid, whose name was Seona, did not arrive one day. Then the next. And the day after that. None the wiser, the distraught little dragon continued to wait for her hasty head-rubs and lifesaving sustenance, but Meya had already resigned herself to the truth.
Before Seona disappeared, Polus had grown increasingly frustrated at the lack of a golden sheen on his dragon. The little dragon had barely touched the mound of brass shavings. She only ate as much as her body required. Yet, she seemed satiated and remained stubbornly iron-gray. His parents had probably deduced for him that someone had been disobeying his orders.
Meya could only hope Seona was left alive to find employment elsewhere with not too much flogging.
Without Seona, brass shavings again became the sole item on the menu. Meya didn't have to be born a dragon to know that eating nothing but brass coins would result in an early and torturous death.
Just as Meya was beginning to wonder, once more, how the little dragon managed to survive such atrocity, Polus came shuffling up the lawn one day, sack lugging behind him, a dejected pout on his cherubic face.
"Caius's dragon died yesterday." He grunted as he let go of his sack. It sat crumpled and hunchbacked beside him. His pale green eyes narrowed in annoyance as he glowered at her through a curtain of tousled ebony locks. "He said he gave it nothing but copper to eat for a month."
As Meya looked on, numb with grief and fury that was solely hers, Polus opened the cage and nudged the sack in with his foot. Black, moist earth fell onto the flattened grass.
The little dragon wouldn't have cared to be affronted even if she'd understood human words. She pranced forth and buried her head into the mound, gobbling up, down, left and right.
Over the rustling of the sack, the sound of Polus's stomping footsteps traveled through three inches of soil to her ears as he flounced away, back to the safety of his mansion. He'd probably nag his father for a new showy toy soon. One that wouldn't die halfway while he used it as fuel to boil up jealousy and admiration from his just-as-spoilt friends.
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Meya was jolted awake by shouts, bangs, clatters and harried footsteps of a dozen men. The dragon raised her spinning head, eager for food and water. The house had been lifeless for a day and night, after a burst of activity during which servants scrambled about, stuffing their cloth bundles with whatever valuable they could snatch before jumping ship.
Only Polus and his family remained unseen, but Meya had heard the boy bawling in protest over his mother's trembling, tear-choked pleas that they must leave, that Papa would not be going with them, and no, he couldn't bring along his new pet parrot, which now sat in a golden cage beside Meya's, nor the little dragon.
Men in flowing blue capes and silvery armor spilled around the mansion's marble corner onto the gardens. At the sight of their bared scimitars, Meya couldn't help not being as hopeful as the clueless little dragon. Well, at least now she knew why Polus's family had fled. The Commander had probably committed treason against the emperor, and the dictator had been generous enough to have his family join him in Fyr's Lake.
The emperor's men darted in all directions with a frenzy like that of trapped mice, disturbing every silhouette in sight. Potted plants were smashed. Barking guard dogs silenced. Crashes from inside the mansion echoed through swinging windows.
Food! Water!
The dragon's desperate screech swallowed that of the startled parrot. With the lasts of her strength, she lurched forth and rammed her horned head against the wire mesh. Her priorities soon shifted, however, when she noticed fire dancing on the glass of windowpanes, stark orange against the night as smoke billowed out all open orifices of the house. She thrust her side against the net this time. The warming metal fabric yielded but did not burst.
As seconds rushed by and the heat and smoke thickened, the parrot echoed her despair, ricocheting inside its cage like dice in a tube—if dice could scream. The dragon's fear poisoned Meya as if it were her own, even as she knew she couldn't possibly die now.
The dragon would survive into adulthood and become a soldier. Curators had read her eye. But then again, there was always the chance of a mistake—not to mention her rotten Greeneye luck.
Should she stay and wait for salvation, or should she leave before having to experience being cooked alive? What if something important was about to happen? How much would she miss the next time she returned?
A shadow backlit by a wall of flames streaked towards them, saving Meya from further dithering. Flat, solid black gave way to shapes and colors—a soot-smudged, sweaty young soldier in a torn blue cape. He tore open the parrot's cage—then Meya's, as the traumatized bird shot away to freedom.
The little dragon hobbled forth, bruised and feeble. The soldier's pale green eyes gawked out at her from his sooty face.
"Fly! Go!" He yelled, arms flailing in exasperation. Meya nudged her head against his middle, keening for sympathy. It'd been cloudy these few days and she hadn't been touched by a single ray of sun. Her wings were too weak to lift her heavy, metallic body. The soldier exploded in curses. Shaking his head, he stooped down,
"If I die for this thing, Caecil, I swear—" He grunted as he heaved the little dragon into his arms. He sprinted back the way he had arrived, then reared back with a cry of pain at the wave of intense heat.
He spun about wildly, watching as flames and smoke closed in around them, his sobbing voice swearing vengeance at the unseen Caecil. The little dragon urged herself up then touched her forehead to his. A vision of the mansion's hidden back gate consumed them, superseded by reality.
Underneath a coat of ash, the soldier turned pale as lime.
"Oh, Valtor." He breathed, then tore down the garden path towards the towering hedge. He turned the corner and threw their combined weight against the narrow metal gate. Cool night air washed over them. Safe at last.
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"A dragon, Caecil—and a female at that. We'll get much use out of it."
The scarred, mustached man in a blue cape grunted, as the boy lathered his hand up and down the contours of her head. The soldier who had rescued her loitered behind, his expression stricken. Caecil's lone, pale green eye stared straight through her, empty as the socket on the other side of his face. At his father's voice, he tensed up.
"What did you mean, Father?" He asked, his voice low and frosty. His father bristled.
"Don't use that tone with me, boy!" He roared. Caecil and the dragon flinched in unison. The soldier averted his eyes and dipped his head as their father paced between them, gesturing in frustration, "You think we could afford to raise this metal-guzzling lizard for pleasure, like Patricius's brat?" He spun around, jabbing his finger at Meya, "I let Calix bring it home for three reasons: its eyes, its wings and its womb!"
As his father's voice echoed in the cluttered, dingy basement, Caecil's hand trembled on her shoulder. At the sight of his son's anguish, the father sighed. He clomped over and slumped onto his haunches beside the blind boy.
"You'll get to see the world, Caecil." He urged tenderly, "You'll fly into battle, and you'll be gifted with a mighty Hybridean child. Think, son, what all this would bring to our family. Your mother would finally get the treatment she deserves."
Caecil's already wrinkled eyebrows spasmed, torn between two evils. He looked to be no more than seven, pale and thin, yet having to shoulder such expectations. While the little dragon was bored and confused by this droning stream of human gibberish, and simply wanted to be left alone to recuperate, Meya's heart writhed along with Caecil's.
"I'm sorry, Father." Caecil muttered. His father heaved another sigh as he rested his lined, roughened hand on the boy's head of ebony curls.
"I'll leave you two to get to know each other, then." He rose to his feet, cocking his head at Calix, "We must be off. The emperor's appointing Thelonius the new Commander."
Once the door had swung shut behind his father and brother, Caecil scooted towards her, his lips twisted into a crooked smile.
"Hello. I'm Caecilius—because I'm blind. I know...my parents are pretty creative, huh?"
He prattled on as he undid the Lattis gloves on her paws. Meya glanced around and realized she was sitting inside a large wooden tray blanketed with a thick layer of moist black earth. She turned and followed Caecil as he stood up and felt his way to the window behind her.
"Thelonius was gonna burn down Polus's house. His father tried to kill the emperor. Theo was bragging about it in class. So I begged Calix to free you."
He threw aside the curtains and flung the panes open as wide as they could strain against rusty hinges, letting the rejuvenating light of day inside. The baby dragon yearned towards it.
"You're supposed to fly away, actually. Never mind, we'll get you back to the sanctuary. Promise."
He said with a casual determination which implied past triumphs. Meya was intrigued. Fortunately, her hunger satiated and her fatigue abated, the little dragon's priorities had shifted to taking stock of the new human. She peered at the back of Caecil's head.
Day was replaced by nothingness. It was a peculiar sensation. Not black. Nor gray. Not even darkness. Just blindness. In Caecil's hands, the baby dragon's skin felt shrunken and emaciated inside its armor of copper scales. The poor thing lay still, betraying not even the barest pulse. Surrounding them was the scent she knew so well, of grass and earth and water and sun, of home. Muted plops were barely heard amidst Caecil's howling sobs, as his tears splattered onto the dragon's scales and slid off. A hot, sweaty palm pressed firm onto his shoulder. His memory told them it was Calix's.
Caius's dragon. The brothers had tried to save him. And almost succeeded.
Meya prayed the little one at least had a glimpse of home, a taste of freedom, before Fyr took him. The surviving dragon mourned with her.
The memory ebbed away. Caecil had climbed into her soil-box. He sprinkled water onto the earth then set to work, patting and molding the raised mound into the passable silhouette of a dragon.
As he continued patting, his hand instead touched the baby dragon's horned, metallic head. He froze, surprised, then relaxed with a smile, as the little dragon nuzzled up against his chest.
"Father never understands. I'm happy the way I am." He whispered as he pressed his nose against her smooth crown,
"If I had to steal a dragon's eye to see the world, maybe the world isn't worth seeing."