Winterbound, Part 12 - Ground

 The night passed and after a somewhat restless slumber they all rose to greet Giver’s Day.  The dragon’s eyes were keen, watching their movement as they took down their hammocks, but shrouded somehow. They were, Anaya realized, like a pair of old mirrors, their shine dimmed down and the reflection softer around the edges than it used to be.

They ate sitting on the rocks at the lake’s shore, none of them daring to talk. Tiu watched Anaya with a frown, her dark brows furrowed and eyes tense around the corners. Madiza was also watching her, wary. She tried not to meet either of their gaze.

The tense atmosphere was shaken as Kimo scooted closer to Anaya and whispered, not quite as quietly as he had probably been hoping for: “So… is anyone gonna mention the fact that you can apparently talk to dragons? Like… what?!”

The words hung in the air for one second, two seconds. Then Tiu snorted. Madiza huffed and straightened her posture in the prissy way that had somehow become familiar during their week out here together. That, in turn made Anaya grin, laughter bubbling behind her teeth.

“Well?” Kimo hissed, still seemingly believing his whispers – more like shouts in the silence of the like – were only reaching their intended audience.

The dragon’s breath blew over them like the first gust of winter, amusement tingling in Anaya’s mind. 'The young one is right to wonder,' its words followed. 'I owe you an explanation, about all of this. It’s time for you to see what I see.'

Anaya’s head snapped up, facing the dragon.

“What is it saying now?” Tiu’s words seemed distant, as Anaya felt herself shrink under the dragon’s stare. She shook herself free from the feeling, turning towards her friend.

“She… she says she’s going to explain everything.”

~x~

What the dragon had meant by its declaration, quickly became clear. Using Anaya to convey its messages, it made them all climb onto its back and with a frosty gale it rose to the skies. As Anaya hung to its scaly neck, she was vaguely aware of something shifting around her. The dragon’s body felt alive beneath her, in more ways than she could explain.

“Matter manipulation.” Tiu leaned in closer to say, her voice almost drowned by the whiz of wind flowing past them. “The dragon is making itself bigger to carry us all.”

'We, the creatures you humans call dragons, are the original shapers of the world.' The dragon’s voice sent tremors through Anaya’s body. She felt as though she should’ve felt cold, but she didn’t. That too, must’ve been the dragon’s doing. 'Everything your kind has learned, all the little ‘tricks’ you’re capable of, are the remnants of an ancient power passed on from our elders to yours.'

Anaya’s eyes widened, a nearly forgotten saying suddenly flashing to her mind. “Blessed with the might of dragons…” Anaya muttered. Her grandmother had used to say that about people. Had she known what it truly meant?

“What?” Madiza shouted from behind Tiu. “You’ll have to speak louder! I can’t hear anything.”

“The dragons created our magic!” Anaya yelled back. “They can shift through time and space at will.”

They were far above the mountains by then, gliding through a sea of clouds that almost resembled the tufts of snow that had fallen on the night they first saw the dragon. The ground, so far below, was but a blur of green and brown. As she stared down, wondering how high above they might be, she again noticed the shift. At once, the scenery, still but a mesh of colours, seemed different. The river was there, its branches the same, but something was undoubtedly off. Then it happened again, and after a moment again, the change that was almost there, but so minute you couldn’t be sure of it.

“What is… happening?” Anaya asked, her voice not carrying to the others behind her.

'I told you, didn’t I?' The dragon rumbled in her mind. 'I am lost.'

Panic seized Anaya’s throat. 'And now we’re lost with you?' She thought, her grip tightening on the dragon’s neck.

'Do not fret, little one, for I would not have brought you with me if I couldn’t return you where you belong. That much is within my power.'

Relieved by the dragon’s promise, Anaya attempted to fix her gaze on the ever-morphing scenery beneath her, but it appeared nearly impossible. As she understood this, so too came another realization. 'This is why you can’t just fly home,' Anaya thought, 'no matter how far north you flew, it still wouldn’t be right place.'

'Nor the right time.' Came the dragon’s admission, tinged with regret. 'Us dragons, we are beings not bound by the laws that govern your reality. Since the beginnings of the world, we have been free to come and go, uncaring about the passing of the ages. But in our freedom, we eventually grew lonely.'

Anaya felt her body grow heavy with the weight of the dragon’s old sorrow.

'And so, long ago we made a pact with your forefathers. We taught them our ways and in return we asked for but one thing.'

“What did you ask for?” Anaya asked. Behind her, Tiu reached out to grab onto her waist.

'We asked for you to bind us. To act as our anchors in the tides of temporality, so that after our flights we could find home once more.'

 The dragon craned its neck, its eye flashing with melancholy as Anaya momentarily caught its gaze.

'There are not many of you who eventually learned to do what we needed. And through time, their numbers withered. We became beings of the past to you humans, as we no longer could venture further into the future.'

 “So, how are you here—I mean, how did you come to our time, then?” The questions poured out of Anaya’s mouth. “You say you’re lost. What happened to your anchor, the human who guides you?”

'They are gone.' The dragon’s words rang final, the cold clarity of them seizing at Anaya’s heart. 'And without them, I am lost. But as I flew searching, I heard something familiar, and I followed the trail. At the end of it, I found something better than I first dreamed.'

Anaya shivered. The ground underneath the clouds had shifted back, familiar once more.

'You, Anaya. My guide. My anchor.'

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Next topic is Consequences.