As I lay down for the night at Featherdown I felt the exhaustion of the day. From recovering from the dreaded morning after drinking to the audition to be working for the Rutherfords. I was debating having to cheat in training them with a little bit of magic so that they would absorb the lessons exceptionally quickly for their age. If they weren’t naturally gifted. Which after seeing Mary the chance of running into another one would be very unlikely.

I was rather full from the meal with my gracious hosts even if the food was dry and rather unseasoned. There was no small amount of hope that the meals I would enjoy there while teaching the children would be more flavorful and delicious. I pulled off my boots and woolen socks. My sweat coated feet aired pleasantly in the cool room. I pulled off my clothes and slipped into the meager blanket and pulled my bedroll's spare blanket over myself sighing as the scratchy burlap of the bed itched my skin. It sure was better than a hay bale or hard bench.

As I drifted off I didn’t know what dream I would have. If I did I wouldn’t have fallen asleep.

It was ancient times. I had learned the ways of morphing into human form and walked among the people for a lifetime. Forever in the body of a young girl that had awoken me from my slumber. She had aged and now was a revered storytelling grandmother that had sired a line of influential children in her life. I sat with her now telling her of the first peoples now that the signs of the world could allow for such an advanced conversation.

Her hair was like gray straw dried and brittle. It could not be tamed no matter how many times her children tried to comb it straight so that it wouldn’t be so wild. Her eyes were rheumy and clouded now in her old age and I could feel her life force waning into nothing. I could sense her passing coming and it made my heart ache. Her lips were soft and thin, wrinkles creased her face like valleys and ravines. Great lines lay at her eyes from all the smiling she had done while she had lived a full life. The culture she had become part of, they all worshiped the dragons. Called us the children of the gods given to the world as mighty protectors. Even now I was lavished with gifts I would turn away. Even the modicum of clothing I wore I would rarely replace. Such gifts were not needed for me. I only desired that they listen to my tales and stories.

This day of all days I sat next to her form. She was laying down, no longer strong enough to stand on her own. Her chest rattled with a sickness I would not be able to heal. It was to be her time to go into the world beyond. Not even I, a child of the gods, knew for sure what lay after life had ended. The legends of such a thing had not yet existed. The gods had not yet decided to let us know what came after life. I held her feverishly warm hand and stroked her forehead like she had done for so many children. I knew not if she could hear me now as I told her of the first calamity. I even manifested one of my wings to drape along the cavern as my living tapestry to help tell the tale. The god Klaxu is now dormant and peaceful.

I decided I would keep a vigil over her and watch as she passed onto the next realm. I had spoken many hours with her just as I had with the first storyteller so long ago. A friendship I had not expected to sprout between us. I didn’t think I had it in me at the time to bond so closely with someone again. My connections with the people of the primitive village have infused me with some portion of humanity. A permanent warmth in my soul I did not see in my sister Boneshaker.

My soul ached to visit my trapped sister Crafter in her cave at the heart of Klaxu. I worried for her but the sounds of her howling madness and cries would serve only pain to me. I only knew that once Gathers Knowing passed I would leave the village for some time. To feel her loss in only the way that I could after knowing her for so long. I could feel the strange stares from all the other people that my lack of change was so alien and different. Their eyes bore into me with reverie and envy.

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I would search the lands. I heard the people that crafter had been with were long lived. Maybe I could forge something different there. I might have been a protector of man but what of the fae descended elves? The half elemental people that now stretched across the north. Whispers that they were the children of Klaxu. Or would I rather be alone for an age. Let my heart heal from some of the wounds. Would I heal?

When the moons were high in the sky she passed holding my hand. Her feverishly warm body cooled beneath my hands. I took a great breath and let my magic wash over her, turning her into a canvas collection of art detailing her life before my very eyes. I held it to my chest for a moment and felt tears fall down my cheeks. Something that only happened when I was in this human form. I left her private room and handed the canvas to her children. I showed them the story of her life. Even the moments they were there for. The pride and joy she held when she became a grandmother. Such a short life in the face of eternity.

I made up my mind then. I climbed to the shrine they had made in my honor. The plateau was covered with gifts of fur and trinkets. Artwork on stone slabs and leather canvas. I pulled the clothes free of my body. I placed them gently down and freed myself from the form of the little girls I had taken so long ago. My wings stretched before my back as the rest of me caught up in the transformation. After a long minute I was my towering self. I noticed that I had become slightly larger than I had before I spent a lifetime amongst the humans.

With great flapping of my wings the things gifted to me scattered in the powerful wind as I took to the sky. I soared through the air and opened my senses to the world. I had forgotten what it felt like to fly. The sheer freedom made my heart sing with it. I let out a mournful cry as I did a flyby of the village and soared off into the distance. I missed my sister. She was rough, angry, and powerful. A being wrapped in death for their power.

I don’t know how many months it took me soaring around the lands to find Boneshaker. It had been some cycles of the moons before I scented her power on the winds. I turned slowly at the cold emanating power and soon saw the hollow mountain she must call home. Bones littered all the surfaces of the place and I let out a warning roar that I was arriving. A call so loud it shook the very air around me.

A returning call was made and I floated down through the air landing gently on the bottom of the slope of her mountain. She crawled forth from her lair and stood before me.

The gaps in our sizes were much less pronounced now that I had spent so much time with the humans of the village. She was just as massive as she was before. The decorations upon her neck and arms more pronounced and large. Her eyes looked tired and exhausted with long rest.

“Why do you wake me brother?” Came Boneshaker’s voice, exhaustion and fatigue laced those words. “How long have I been asleep?”

“If you rested when I did, it has been decades since the birth of Klaxu. I thought you would also have been awake during this time. I didn’t know that you were so drained from the calamity.”

Anger suffused her body as she stared down at me. The air vibrating with hostility, “Do you doubt my contribution to the saving of this world?”

I bowed my head, cowed in her presence. “I did not mean to make you feel as if I doubted you. We were all taxed to our limits and I should have known. Would you visit our entombed sister? I’ve visited a few times and she still raves as if in madness. Maybe if we are together it will be better.”

She shook her head, “I do not wish to see her reduced to such a creature. If you wish to delude yourself into the thought of her recovering I won’t stop you. How long have you been awake? Do you know if there is another calamity?”

“It has been nearly four decades since I was awoken by one of the tribes I protected so long ago. I lived amongst them and felt my power grow so I wanted to see how you were faring and traveled here.” I looked around at her massive collection of bones that all gave her some power, “I know not of any coming calamity but maybe we should prepare. Who knows when the gods will call us.”

“Come with me to the mountain reaching the heavens and we shall ask them.”

To be continued.