The sky was open and blue with great pillowing white clouds. My heart sang once more after the mourning of Gathers Knowing. It took me years of solitude to heal my heart after spending a lifetime with her. We had never grown romantic with one another but the deep friendship we had opened my eyes to what I could have with other people. My attempts to reach out to Boneshaker had given me nothing. She desired no friendship with another being. Crafter had grown mad and wouldn’t listen to any words spoken through the boulder that trapped her.
The loneliness finally was getting to me so I decided I would return to the civilizations of man. I flew across the skies until I saw the bustling village of people. They rejoiced as I flew circles around the place and slowly came to a landing on the platform that I had once slept upon in my rest from the calamity. Many people came to see me as I stood regally before them. Their bowing and groveling seemed to fill me. I closed my eyes and started to revert to my small female form.
I opened my eyes and looked at everyone around and some of them rushed to cover me with clothes and furs of high quality. I wrapped them tight and looked at the women that seemed to radiate life and their bellies swollen with children. I touched my stomach and wondered what it would feel like to harbor life. This body was too young to do so. Would they be a dragon like me? Or would they be mortal and I would lose them in time? I needed to find out.
I walked to one of them and touched them lightly, the woman seemed honored by me and knelt to look me in the eye. I touched her hair and used my magic to study her body and began to change mine. Not into a mirror like I had with Gathers Knowing but instead aged my form as I had seen her grow in time. The clothes grew tighter around me as I filled them more fully. The woman looked at me with wonder and stood with me as well. I tried to be with a child with magic and nothing happened. Frowning I instead motioned for everyone to lead me down into the village.
Everyone hustled and moved around preparing food and pemmican for the coming change in the season. It wouldn’t get too cold here as the world in this region seemed to stay pretty temperate throughout the years. Men and women moved about with one another in pairs. Their separate homes built for individuals. I had once shared a place with Gathers Knowing before she had found a mate and I knew that is what would be customary in the world.
None of the young men without women seemed to want to approach me except to offer me gifts and tokens of worship. I pushed it all away, I didn’t desire to be revered amongst them and instead wanted acceptance and family. Many of the men seemed to be preparing for a hunt and their women collected themselves and were adorning them with necklaces and baskets. Their weapons were made of sharp obsidian. I approached them not to join the hunt but instead brought something from amongst the supplies and followed the example of the other women and helped one young and distracted man. His attempts to refuse my help frustrated me, the words to express that displeasure came to me and he was cowed. It felt as if I forced him to allow me to help him and I grew distressed.
The group departed into the sunset as it had taken most of the day for them to be prepared with me around trying to blend in. There was a strange sense of rejection amongst them as only the eldest of them remembered that I had once been a close member of the community before my departure at the death of Gathers Knowing. Her grandchildren are now old women, her grandsons long since dead in battle and hunting. I met with them that night and they rejoiced with a great meal.
I ate the spit animal with them cutting off great slices of juicy venison to eat. I danced with some of the eldest of the women half carrying them in my arms with joy singing in my heart. They laughed with me and showered me not with gifts but small moments of affection that warmed my soul in a way that my mourning time had not let me feel. As they all grew exhausted into the night I helped lay them to bed and shared stories of their grandmother to them. Watched them drift off to sleep and hoped they dreamed of good things. I walked around the village vibrating with energy to be along the lives of man.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The indifference that the men and the young people seemed to give me I hoped would fade with my efforts to blend in with them. I passed homes, some of which were filled with the soft cries of newborn babies. I felt an ache in me, a desire to know the joy I had seen in Gathers Knowing when she bore her first child into this world. My hand hovered over my belly, I knew what happened between those bound to each other and how they embraced one another to make the children. I doubted I would have someone embrace me as such until people could see me as one of them.
The next day as the sun rose I walked with the other women and began to work alongside them. We were weaving baskets together in a circle and the women began to chat between one another after the weight of the silence was finally broken by one of the elders. Soon enough I was smiling along with everyone else at stories of people’s children and their chosen men. Soon though the circle of women were looking to me.
One of them spoke up, “Would you tell us a story, great one?”
“I will if you do not call me a great one. Call me Weaver, that is all I ask now.” I waited for the uncomfortable looks between them to fade as they all nodded.
“Would you, Weaver?”
With a nod I started to talk to them about things the world should not forget. Of the meeting of the first dragons. The other types of people in this world, of the dragons I had met in my time and the races that were different from themselves. The ways of others. I went on and on and each time I told something new to them I felt a trickle of energy fill me in return. Baskets finished in their hands and they sat still listening as I struggled to finish my own. My hands are unskilled in comparison to all those around me.
I looked at everyone else and presented my basket to them all. It unraveled in front of my eyes and I felt a flood of embarrassment fill me. I clutched the strips now undone and the laughter of the women filled the air. Some of them came up to me and finally showed me how it was properly done. My study of them from afar was so far away from what was actually needed. I felt my human cheeks flush with heat as the women crowded me. Most of them grabbed the supplies to make another set as two of them stayed with me and helped me construct my fist basket.
It was sundown when I finally finished my first one and everyone else had made two a piece without half as much struggle as I had. I looked at it compared to the others and could see how different they were. Frowning to myself I almost moved to smash it before a woman snatched it away chastising me. “Don’t waste hard work. It will serve a purpose.”
“But it is made so poorly, what could it do? Won’t it fall apart?” I asked with a hint of shame in my words.
She smiled at me, “Children will learn to take it apart, and in doing so they will learn how to make their own. Though it won’t be used directly it will help make more. You should be proud of that.”
I fell into quiet contemplation as everyone moved to their own homes. Some of them laughing that the Great One had not been able to do something so simple that they all knew how to do. I could tell how spoiled I was in the last life I spent with the humans. I gathered more supplies and sat down in the moonlight. I promised myself, I would make a basket, without help and it would be good. The stars and moon gave me enough light to work as the air cooled around me.
The sun rose and still I had not succeeded in making a basket I was happy with. So for the second time I pulled it apart and looked at all the pieces. I took calming breaths and thought of my friend. She had been patient beyond even my own abilities. I pictured the serene look upon her face whenever she learned something new, when I didn’t bother and would lounge until it was time to tell stories.
Women emerged from the huts and looked upon me with confusion. One such approached me, “Weaver, you’ve woken up so early to work. Are you okay?”
I looked at her feeling the exhaustion of the body I had chosen, “I have not rested, I will not rest until I succeed and make something everyone can use.” I started to work again but she took my hands.
“Unrested minds make mistakes Weaver. Rest even for a little and then return.” She pushed me as if I was a stubborn child into a hut and brought me to a bedroll. I fought feebly, this body not able to overpower the other woman who was older than myself. Soon though exhaustion took me and I fell asleep in the furs she covered me with.
I dreamt of success, that I was the best basket maker in the world. That I had been able to spend lifetimes upon lifetimes to mastering it. When I woke a few hours later I hopped up and felt invigorated. I put myself back to work and my days went by like this as the men hunted. A week passed before I presented my best work to the other women in the village. My smile was so wide it hurt my face as they inspected it. Each of them smiled and nodded to me.
They handed it back to me, “Now you just need a man to give it to.”
“What else do I need to give a man?” I asked with a burning desire to succeed in my heart.