1.2 Partners
Eighteen years later and a thousand miles to the south in
the high mountains of the Spine, another young girl had a vision of a different
future: a future that would intersect Makashti’s.
***
1.1.1.Dream of Flying (POV: Astrid)
1.2.1 Pranked
Astrid reined her dragon to fly against the beam of sunlight
that broke through the clouds, hoping to hide within the thunderstorm from the
fire-breather. Until the sun fully set, they would weave through the rose
tinted clouds and lightning bolts to evade the predator. It was cold up here
and a late spring. A drop of rain stung her cheek and she quickly leaned over
to hug her dragon and let the rain arc over her.
They had flown deep into the mountains of the Spine to free a
female dragon from the fire-breather’s lair. Astrid would be the first of her
kind to see a reclusive female, but only if they avoided being lunch for the
much larger hunter. For the moment they were free, and she closed her eyes to
feel the wind in her hair and smell the crisp damp air. She opened her arms
wide with the exhilaration of the chase and sang. From far away she heard
someone call her name, but she knew they could not leave their shelter in the
clouds just yet…
“Astrid!” the voice called to her from just a few feet away.
Her arms still outstretched, she opened her eyes to see the rector[1]
and the entire pod of twenty students staring at her. Their laughter burst her
day-dream; she blushed, and drew her hands into her lap.
“Astrid, what is the name of our mountains?” the rector
asked.
“Uh…the Spine,” Astrid stammered, struggling to drag her
attention back to the class.
“And where are we from?” the rector asked. Many children
raised their hands, but the teacher kept her focus on just one. “Astrid,
please.”
“The Old Empire,” Astrid said, but did not look up this
time.
“And what came before the Old Empire?” Vinga asked the
class.
“The Wandering,” the class said in unison but Astrid had
lost interest and instead concentrated on the tint of rose for the clouds in her
sketch of a dragon flying through the clouds during a summer rain.
1.1.2.The Dragon’s Prank
Spring came late again this year and Vinga had taken the
children outside to the walnut grove rather than stay inside the stuffy Clan
Manor where they had been cooped up during the long winter. Spring came late
each of Astrid’s twelve years, but this spring was here—she could smell it and
could not wait for school to end.
While Astrid sketched and hummed, the lesson continued. “See here. Our mountains separate Suleria and
the Old Empire,” the rector said, pointing to a region near the north-east of
the mountain range. “And this is our valley, here.”
But Astrid was
back in her own world, detailing the dragon in her sketchbook and singing
softly.
“Honorable Vinga,[2]
why did our people leave the South?” the boy who sat in front of Astrid asked.
This was the new boy in school and the focus of attention of all the young
girls, and like them, Astrid stopped what she was doing and looked up.
“It's not written, Finn,” Rector Vinga replied. “We left
long ago with only our clothing. The elders tell us that we were once slaves
that were freed by a miracle of the One God.” She waved her hands to the floor
of the valley and its tan checkerboard of tilled land. “Who taught us to farm,
children?” she asked and showed a drawing of their first years in the valley.
“We took this knowledge from the South,” the class
responded.
“The pictures show we grew corn, and now we grow wheat.
Why?” Finn asked.
“Corn grows better in a hotter climate in the South,” Vinga
said.
“But the pictures show that we grew corn here when we first
arrived…” Finn said.
Astrid drifted
back into her own world, singing softly as she captured the walnut grove in her
sketchbook. From within the grove she heard a low hum in harmony, stopped, and
looked up. A head poked out from the leaves of the tree: huge, with teeth as
long as her hand and eyes as large and green as melons. It was small for a
dragon, perhaps five yards tooth to tail.
When Finn turned, the huge beast looked at him, flared its
nostrils and inhaled slowly and deeply, eyes now as bright and red as
pomegranates. Their fairy tales had told the children what to expect
next—incineration—but there was no time to run. Finn stood up in defiance to
shield the smaller children, but then closed his eyes and cringed. The beast
put its jaws a few inches from Finn’s face and—
— knocked
him on his butt with a puff of air, not flames.
The beast chuffed a few times, which for a dragon was laughter,
and all the children laughed with him: all except Finn who remained unseared
but with a red face and embarrassed smile. Everyone knew the dragon's joke but
Finn: dragons did not breathe fire, at least not outside the world of myth.
“Thank you ahh…,” Vinga said, looking at the dragon. “You
are excused.” She waved her hand as if to push it back into the trees.
“His name is Little Wing,” Astrid said though dragons could
not speak their names to humans.
“Thank you Little Wing,” the rector said, and returned to
her instruction.
The dragon purred at the attention, his eyes pearlescent. He
did not leave but instead returned to his place in the walnut grove and
continued to hum in harmony to Astrid's song.
“She will become a Rider,” said a teacher observing the
dragon's prank.
“But she is too young,” said another. “And the dragon is too
small.”
(c) 2015 B. R. Strong, Jr.
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