Draka

I spent the rest of the afternoon telling Herald about my old life. I tried to avoid technology as much as possible, both because I barely knew how any of it worked and because I didn’t want to derail too much, but I kind of had to explain smartphones and motorbikes. They’d both been important to me.

In both cases she was amazed, not at what they could do but at how widely available they were. Apparently it was totally doable to enchant something to move on its own, or to send and receive sound or pictures. It was just extremely expensive, with the cost increasing with the complexity of the enchantment. Herald thought the city council might have one single artefact that allowed them to basically video call the rulers of other cities, but that was it.

You could also enchant other things, but again, it was expensive, and for one simple reason. It took two major advancements to make an enchanter: one to be able to use magic at all, and one to bind it into an object, however that worked. Considering how rare it was to reach your second major, that meant that even those who gained the power usually didn’t live for more than another one or two decades, maybe three at the very best. Something fairly simple, like a box that always stayed cold on the inside or a plate that heated up, could be afforded by an affluent home or a reputable inn. But things escalated quickly when it came to weapons. Something like a knife or sword that would never get dull, one of the simplest weapon enchantments, would cost many gold Dragons. That was years of earnings for most people even if they never spent a brass bit.

“If I had a hundred Dragons,” Herald said, “I would get a bow which will never break, and which can withstand any weather, so I would never need to worry about having it strung in the rain, and a matching quiver of arrows.” She looked ahead wistfully for a while, then sighed. “No, I lie. If I ever have a hundred Dragons I will retire with the others. For that money I could buy a cheap inn, with plenty to spare to pay people to run it for me. I’m sure Makanna would like that. It would be a big step up for us, as a family. We might even be a House.”

She didn’t sound all too excited, and I got it. As short a time as I had known her, I couldn’t see her giving up on adventuring to run a Bar-slash-Bed-and-Breakfast.

”But if I did not,” she said, getting that faraway look again, “I would get that bow.”

“Is the weather thing such a big deal?”

“It can be. The string goes bad if it stays wet, and so can the staff. But besides being impervious to the weather, such a bow would be one of the finest bows money can buy to start with. No one would bother to enchant a weapon that was not already a masterpiece.” She sighed. "Perhaps if I work hard and save I can at least get the bow itself one day, or a few enchanted arrows."

“Oh, that makes sense, I guess,” I agreed. If the enchantment is going to cost a lifetime’s earnings for a normal person, who’d worry about the few years’ earnings that the basic item would be worth?

“I… I have been reading a lot about enchanting,” Herald confessed. “I think it is fascinating. And I was hoping… You know that Mak has magic, and remember I told you that Tam does as well? So did our mother. There is no conclusive evidence that magic runs in families, not really, but I was hoping, you know. And you need magic to become an enchanter, and as fast as I am gaining advancements…”

“That sounds like an amazing goal,” I told her.

“Yeah,” she said, almost shyly, like she was confessing a great secret. “I am hoping that if I learn enough about it I might get the chance. Understand, I will never consider it wasted time. It is fascinating on its own. But if I could become an enchantress…”

“You would never need to worry about money again,” I finished for her.

She looked at me for a moment. “Oh, right,” she said. “Of course. I was thinking we could have any enchanted equipment we wanted, me and the others. But the money would be nice, too.”

"You, ah, you mentioned you used to have a lover," Herald said thoughtfully after another long silence. “What happened?”

Ugh. That brought my mood down a bit. Not because of any old anger or anything. It was just so… banal.

“Alex and me,” I said, “we just weren’t good, yeah? He was in university and I barely graduated. He never tried to make me feel dumb or anything but he had this way where he assumed that people knew and understood shit, so he’d be talking about something and then he’d have to dumb it down until we were both embarrassed. He played chess and go and stuff like that, and I couldn’t care less. And he always fussed about me getting hurt, both the climbing and the motorbike and some other stuff I did, and I just wanted him to join in the fun.”

I sighed and thought about it for a while, wondering how we even stayed together as long as we did. “Basically, I kept trying to get him to push his limits, and he kept trying to slow me down. In the end all we had was sex and comfort. It was nice, but that was all it was. We didn’t do anything together, and in the end we didn’t love each other. So we talked, and I moved in with Andrea, and that was that. No big break up, no drama. We still send each other funny shit on Tik-Tok, sometimes. I mean, we did,” I finished sadly.

I looked up at Herald, way above me on Melon’s back, and she was lost in thought. “So,” I said carefully. “What about you?”

From the way she started talking almost instantly it was obvious that she’d been waiting for the question. “There is a boy I know. Maglan. A man. A soldier.” She paused.

Ah, that couldn’t be good. Wasn’t there a war brewing somewhere?

“I have known him since I was small,” she continued, her voice laced with worry, “though we were not really friends until a few years ago. He joined one of the regiments as an archer about two years ago, as soon as he became an adult. And it was good! He got training, and regular pay, and we could still see each other when he was off duty and I was in the city. We had fun, he taught me how to shoot, things like that. And then, one day we kissed. And then a few months ago the regiments got sent off to the south, because there is some disagreement with Happar, and there might be fighting. And I like him, and we were both so worried, and I wanted to make our last night before they marched special, and…” she trailed off.

Ah, right. “So you…?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, blushing again.

“Was it good?” I went on, teasingly.

“I…” She looked at me, shocked at the question.

“Was it?”

“It… yes! It hurt a little. At first. But then it was… nice,” she said, continuing to blush furiously.

“And you were careful?” I pushed.

“Yes,” she said again, her pitch rising. She was clearly regretting bringing the subject of boys up at all. “I asked Lalia. She got me a tea. To make sure.”

“Okay, good. That’s good. You couldn’t ask your sister?”

Herald’s voice was a pained squeak. “No! She has opinions! Strong opinions!”

“Really?” I asked, honestly a little surprised. I didn’t know her that well but she didn’t strike me as stuck up or anything like that. I certainly never thought that she might be a prude.

“She does not want me to ‘repeat her mistakes’,” Herald said, imitating Makanna’s somewhat nasal soprano. “She was very clear when she gave me the girls-and-boys talk. And every time the subject came up after that. Besides, she never particularly liked Maglan.”

“She probably just doesn’t want you to get hurt.” I was trying to be charitable. Prudishness didn’t sound like Makanna. Being overly protective, well…

Herald scoffed. “Sometimes I think that she would lock me in a tower, if she could.”

Right. Change of subject.

“So, this Maglan. Did you hear from him? You know, after?” I dreaded the answer but I had to know.

“Yes,” Herald said with a small smile, much to my relief. “We kissed as they marched off. His friends made fun of him because, you know, I am a bit taller than him. And he smacked them and told them that they would be lucky to have a girl like me even look at them.”

“Cute. And after that?”

Her face slowly fell. “I got some letters, a few weeks apart. Mag never learned to write so he must have had someone write them for him. Then in the last one, six weeks ago, he said that they were moving, and no one would be allowed to send any more letters. And that was that.” She sighed, then lapsed into a sad silence.

All in all, much less bad than I had feared. Still, I was not the person I myself would have gone to for advice about guys, especially in a situation like this. I tried my best to channel every romantic movie I’d ever seen and every piece of relationship advice I’d ever read.

“You miss him, right?” I asked carefully

“Yes.”

“Do you regret sleeping with him?”

“No.” Her voice was very soft, very quiet. “I am glad that I did. That he was my first.”

That answered two questions. “Are you in love with him?”

Herald paused. “I lay with him,” she said uncertainly.

"Wanting to feel good together with someone doesn't have to mean that you're in love.”

She didn't answer.

“How do you miss him?” I tried instead, after a pause.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you miss him like your heart hurts because he’s away, or like you’re worried for your friend and you hope he’ll be okay?”

She didn’t answer. I couldn’t tell if she wasn’t sure, or if she didn’t like the answer. Either way she’d tell me if and when she was ready.

We made camp while there was still a little light. Herald picked a spot where an overhang and a large boulder created a natural shelter from the wind, and a clear stream ran only a few dozen metres away. When I asked about a fire Herald was dead against it, not wanting to draw any attention.

“You were going to show me something when it got darker.” Herald was sitting on her bed roll after a dinner of leftover rabbit and onions. I had declined dinner, not wanting to be a burden on her food stores. “It is darker now.”

And it was. With the sun behind the mountains it was not completely dark yet, but it should do for showing off and doing some testing.

“Yeah,” I said, feeling that excitement that comes when you expect to impress someone. “Let’s do it! Can you see alright?”

“I can see well even in moonlight, and decently by starlight. This is fine. My advancement gives me better night vision than most, though I still need a light or Makanna’s spell when it gets properly dark.”

“Great,” I said, preparing to move to a point about ten metres in front of me. “Keep your eyes on me. I don’t know what this is going to look like, but it might be weird, so don’t freak out on me, alright?”

“I am sure it cannot be that strange–” she said, and I flowed.

Herald shrieked and jumped back. It was a tinny, muffled sound while I was shadowed. She did it again when I became solid, though this time it was muffled by her hands clamped tightly over her mouth.

“Ta-dah?” I suggested.

“What did you do!?” Her eyes were huge as she rushed over to me. She reached out and touched me, as if to make sure that I was real and solid. “How? How did you do that?”

“Advancement,” I said smugly. “Just got it two days ago. What did it look like?”

“This is amazing! It must have been a major! Did you not get a minor just…? No, do not tell me. I cannot handle more envy right now. You were there,” she pointed, “and you just… melted, like honey in warm water! It was like I was not looking at you anymore, but a deeper patch of shadow stretching off towards the horizon. And then it moved, like a torch was moving behind whatever was casting the shadow. I have never seen, never heard of anything similar!”

I basked in her adulation. I was pretty awesome.

Then I had a sudden, horrible realisation. There was a scent that was missing.

“My bag,” I exclaimed. “Where’s my bag?”

Herald looked at my neck, then looked around. So did I, frantically. My bag had not come with me! That bag had seventeen silver Eagles in it! Where was my bag? Where was my silver?

Quicker than me, Herald took a few long steps to where I had been and returned with my bag, slipping it back over my neck, and all was right again. When she had picked it up I had a sudden fear that the dragon would do something terrible. If I felt the loss of my silver like this, what must it be like for the dragon? What would she do if someone tried to take it from us?

“Not her,” the dragon purred in my ear, calming me. “There is nothing to fear from this one. She adores us. She would never steal what is ours. As is only right for one who belongs to us herself.”

That last part. That, again, was not good.

There is an old joke: “The real treasure was the friends we found along the way.” The dragon took that very seriously.

“Thanks,” I said, trying my best to hide my inner turmoil.

“Of course,” she replied slowly, giving me a searching look. “I know what it is like to realise your money pouch is missing.”

Yeah. I don’t know what I looked like, but that reaction had freaked her out way more than the melting-into-shadow thing.

“You know,” I said, trying to distract her with something fun and shiny, “when I move like that I’m not stuck the same size. I think. I can move through holes that my body could never fit through. Wanna see?”

“Oh, yes! Absolutely!” Herald said, brightening.

“Alright, let’s see…” I murmured, looking around. “There!”

There was a kind of tree that grew here, in the rockier parts of the hills where the vegetation was sparse. It looked like an olive tree, except with thin, dropping needles as long as my arm that grew in dense bunches. I’d spotted one with a root that came up off the ground and back down again, forming a hoop roughly the size of a basketball.

“I haven’t tried something this small,” I hedged to Herald as I led her over. “But I’m gonna. Take my bag, yeah?”

“Sure,” she said, lifting the loop of thick twine over my head. I waited for a reaction from the dragon but it didn’t mind. Then I positioned myself on one side of the hoop and focused.

I could manoeuvre a little once I’d melted, but to be sure I willed myself to go straight through that hoop. After a few seconds I felt the now-familiar melting feeling. I flowed towards the hoop, flattening towards the ground. When I reached the rounded root my head and neck went through without any problem, but when my shoulders reached it I felt a resistance that I hadn’t noticed before. There was a strange but not exactly unpleasant stretching feeling, and my body began to pass under it, each part from my shoulders to my chest and belly and hips stretching and then relaxing once on the other side. My tail, again, went through without any strangeness.

“That was disturbing,” Herald said as I came back together, but despite her choice of words she spoke with the excitement of someone discovering something new and interesting. “There was the same appearance of shadow stretching into the distance, and then it… I am not sure how to describe it. You folded around the inside of the root? It seems to have worked, though! How far can you go?”

That was a good question. One that I hadn’t asked yet, myself. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I haven’t tried to go very far, only a few dozen metres.”

Herald looked at me blankly. “How much is a me-ter?” she asked.

Dammit. No one here had ever heard of metric. The local inches and feet and yards were close enough to imperial from what I’d picked up, but I was no good with those anyway. I’d learned them in school, yeah, but I’d been metric all the way. And it wasn't like knowing the language let me do conversions any more easily. I was going to have to relearn my whole system of reference.

“Uh… about a yard, I think?” I said. “Like…” I sat back and gestured with my hands. I hoped that was right. Not like a yard had always been the same back home.

“And you can only do it in the dark?” she asked.

“Or deep shadow,” I said. “There’s a pretty tight limit for what is dark enough.”

“What happens if it’s too bright somewhere?”

“It’s like hitting a wall,” I said, then reconsidered. “A padded wall, I guess. It doesn’t hurt or anything, but I just stop.”

“It is still amazing,” Herald said with appropriate wonder.

“I know, right?” I said happily. God, it was nice to be appreciated! “Oh, and that reminds me! One more thing.”

“There is more?” Herald said with mock outrage.

“Yeah! Can you see the shadow of the tree?”

Herald looked closely. To be fair, with only the moon lighting the tree directly the shadow was not very distinct. I think I had an edge in telling what part of the darkness belonged to what, thanks to my whole shadow deal.

“I think so,” she said finally. “Right by the foot, at least.”

“Alright,” I said. “Focus on that, and where the rest of the shadow should be.”

I padded up into the barely-there shadow of the tree. I might have been able to do this without standing in the actual shadow, but I didn’t want to mess up with an audience. Focusing on the shadow, I willed it to darken. Well, more like I begged it. I really needed this to work.

Tendrils flowed from me, and gradually the edge of the shadow became sharper. Only very slightly at first, but I heard a slow intake of breath from Herald as it became deep and distinct against the lesser darkness around it. I pushed until it stood out as clearly as if it were lit by the midday sun, then glanced at Herald. She stood, mouth slightly open, staring at what I was doing.

With a surge of pride, I pushed. I hadn’t been sure about this, but Herald already looked pretty impressed and if nothing happened she’d never know. But now, using all my will, I made the shadow move. It bent, slowly, towards Herald, and her eyes grew wider until the tip of a shadowy branch barely touched her foot. She snapped out of her stupor and looked at me with a stupefied smile, and I dropped my focus, the shadow snapping back to normal as though nothing had happened.

“That is amazing,” she said, almost reverently.

“It is, isn’t it?” I said in the same tone.

As fun as it would have been to keep experimenting, it was late and we needed to keep moving as soon as possible. It was a cloudy night, the moon only partially lighting up some of the cover and a star showing through a break every so often. Herald trusted Melon to wander free and graze however she wanted, the reliable mare coming back to join us when the dark set in properly. I had expected her to sleep standing up, but she picked a patch of scrubby grass and lay down in it. She was asleep before either of the other two of us.

As we bedded down, Herald on her sleeping roll in the shelter and me curled up between her and the opening. I had an urge to reassure her that we would find her family tomorrow. But she had avoided the subject all day and I would rather not make her worry right before sleep.

“Draka,” Herald said softly in the darkness. “I am glad that you are here.”

“I’ve got your back. Don’t worry,” I said, making it a promise.

“Thank you. Good night, Draka.”

“Good night, Herald.”

I woke up some time later. Herald was jerking in her bedroll, hugging her knees as she whimpered wordlessly.

“It’s alright, kid,” I whispered to her, padding over and lying down beside her. “I’m here. You’re not alone. Don’t worry. Someone’s here.”

Perhaps Lalia deserved better than I’d given her.

I curled around the tall girl best I could, covering her with a wing as I kept muttering soothing words to her until she quieted down. After a little while her shaking stopped, and I went back to sleep.