“You’re just going to the market for thread. It’s not even two miles, round trip, and you won’t have to talk to no one but the lady in the store. There ain’t nothing going to hurt you about that.”
That’s what mother told me that morning. I remember it clear as day because ain’t nobody ever lied to me as bad as she did just then, and she didn’t even know she was doing it.
I guess I’m getting ahead of myself.
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That day I went into town after thread and came home with a dragon. Well, not really. More like he came home with me, first.
I had actually got the thread by the time it all happened, and was on my way back out of the market square. I was minding me own business, not even looking at nobody, just trying to keep out of the press of the crowd and out from under those big, scaly feet. I got stopped at one of those newfangled traffic signals, stuck in the middle of the crowd in the middle of the road, but the crowd of people--I was at the edge of that. On my right was a dragon.
He didn’t look too happy about having to sit there, crouched in the middle of the road, hauling a big old wagon cage full of dragonlings to the slaughter and waiting on all us little snack-sized humans to get out of his way. The little ones in the back were setting up quite a racket, hurting me ears, but it wasn’t that I minded so much as how close I was to the old drake pulling the cart. He was not four feet away and scaring the living daylights out of me. I could hear his every noisy breath, and when he shifted a foot in the dust of the road, the scraping sound sent a shiver up me. I couldn’t help but glance at him, and to my shock, he was looking at me.
I looked away quick as anything, finding something else to rest me eyes upon. I ended up with the cage of dragonlings, all about quarter-size, and all with that little tinge of madness in their eyes. Mostly they were howling or growling desperately, wanting freedom because they knew what was coming to them, but there was one, a strange beast, just sitting there clinging to the bars of the cage, and he was staring right back at me too.
Only with him, I couldn’t look away.
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I don’t right remember what happened then, because I fainted. Right there in the middle of the road, I fell over like I was dead and knocked a lady’s shopping out of her arms. I know because she was still gathering it up when I came to.
I almost fainted straight away again, because the old dragon’s head was looming right above me, blocking out the sun and looking down at me. I couldn’t read any expression in his hard face.
“Give me room,” he told the crowd, and they shuffled back obediently, but just then someone noticed that the signal had changed, and the crowd started to move again, slowly trickling around me and the dragon.
He sighed and picked me up in his claw, and set me between his wings in a sprawl like it wasn't nothing, then ambled slowly out of the middle of the street and pulled his cart into an alley, detached himself, and lifted me gently down again.
Half-petrified, I clung to the front of me apron and stood stock still as he sniffed me, then looked me over.
“What is your name?” he asked finally.
I opened me mouth, but nothing would come out. I shut it, tried again, but still my voice was broken with fear.
“It’s Tolla!” a scratchy voice called from the cage at length, but the old dragon rounded at once.
“Shut your gob, I never asked you,” he said sharply, and the queer-looking youngling who’d stared at me before shrank away from the bars, then fixed his blank gaze on me again from within the cage. The old dragon had to nudge me before I could look away, and I gasped and stumbled down onto my rump in surprise.
“Sorry,” he said. “Is it true? Your name’s Tolla?”
I nodded mutely, trying not to cry. Just for thread, mother said, and here I was, being abducted by a dragon.
“Do you know what happened?”
I shook me head.
He sighed and settled down, catlike, on the ground. “I wasn’t sure at first, but it seems… that rascal over there has Anchored on you.”
Shock finally gave me voice back. “That can’t be possible!” I almost shrieked. “Sir,” I added hastily, and scrambled to my feet.
He shrugged. “Possible or not, it’s happened. A right pain it is, too. I’m halfway to the butcher and here I have to go find a messenger to get someone to pick you and him up and take you back, and wait until your escort gets here…” he waved one foot in an elaboratory gesture. “I’m no happier about this than you are.”
I stared at him, dumb again. He seemed to think this whole… development… was as hard on him as it was on me!
“I ain’t going nowhere,” I finally managed to mumble, “but home.”
“It’s not so bad!” the scratchy voice called out again, but I knew better than to look at the dragonling.
“I didn’t ask you to speak,” the dragon growled, but the youngster just shoved his nose through the bars, and half his head as well, until his horns got stuck.
“She’s my Anchor now,” he said, sounding full of himself, “I should be able to talk to her!”
The old dragon glared, but then heaved another sigh. I was starting to dislike him. “Fine,” he said, making it seem like the young dragon was pulling his very scales out by talking, “but talk from there. You’re staying in the cage until your escort gets here, and don’t go pulling any of that mind trick business on her. I find her a foot closer to the cage and I’ll have your neck anyway,” he said icily, standing up. “Stay here,” he told me, “I’ll be back as soon as I find a messenger.” He ambled out of the alley without a backward glance.
I looked at my toes until the young dragon spoke again. “I’m no happier about this than you, trust me,” he said sourly, “but I couldn’t get any of the humans up at the Eyrie to take to me, and my time had come. You were my last chance.”
He waited for a response, but I had none to give. I watched him out of the sides of my eyes, and he just watched me back for a long moment--until another dragonling, her eyes dark with madness, bit his tail. He swung around and whopped her one, hard, with his curved horns, and she retreated, hissing, only to come back to herself and look around in confusion a moment later.
“They can’t help themselves,” the dragonling said urgently, his pitch-black eyes sad. “I can’t either. The madness is taking us. I would run if I could, we all would, but there’s no escape and we’d just get chased… killed like prey,” he said with disgust. “And that’s if we could even get free in the first place. Not likely with a cage like this. Did you know, the cage isn’t even intended to open? There’s no door. They’ll just drop us in the water, cage and all. I wonder if we’d boil or drown first?” he mused morbidly, bitterly.
“Shut up,” the female who’d bitten him snapped, “We don’t want to hear it, and you’re not helping her any with your talk of death. You’re not even going to die anymore, so what do you care?”
He met her eyes, and his expression was impossible to read. He looked so much older than the adolescent he was.
Eventually, she just turned away and curled up in a corner of the cage.
My new dragon--much as I cringed to think of him being mine--looked at me again. “It’ll work out,” he said, somehow not at all reassuringly, “You’ll see.”
But I swear he was talking to himself.
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We all sat in that alley, the dragonlings bored and anxious, the old drake bored to the point of dozing, and me--I was thinking desperately, but I couldn't think of a single way out of this mess. We were like that for a solid hour before the escort finally arrived.
Three dragons made a great business out in the street, landing and clearing traffic with their great wings--there’s a reason why dragons shouldn’t fly about the city--and the old drake went out to meet them. He brought them into the alley, and a middle-aged woman, her hair cut short as a man’s, hopped off of one of the dragons and came over to me.
“What’s your name?” she asked briskly, offering her hand to me.
It took me a moment to remember the high-born custom of shaking hands, and I took hers weakly and got me arm near shook off. “I’m Tolla,” I said quietly, and tried to open my mouth to speak again but couldn’t quite bear to.
“Which one Anchored on you?”
I pointed at the strange dragonling, and she looked at me in astonishment. “That freak? How?”
I shook me head. I didn’t know.
She heaved a sigh and took a pair of thin leather gloves out of her pocket, and started pulling them on. “Whatever happened, I suppose we have to take you two back now…”
“I don’t want to go back!” I blurted before my shyness could come over me again. “I mean, I want to go home.”
She looked at me for a moment, and then her expression softened. “Honey, this dragon needs you now.”
I couldn’t look at her, and I couldn’t look at the young dragon. Or any of them. I looked at me feet and cried, right there in the dust of the alley, my tears silent down my face and right onto my shoes.
Inside the cage, someone started setting up a squall. I didn’t know if it was my dragon or one of the others, or another fight caused by their madness, but I didn’t look up. I didn’t want any of that mess, didn’t want a dragon, I just wanted to go home and cry to me mother about the terrible adventure I’d had today.
Her hand on my chin raised my head, and somehow, I managed to meet her eyes. “Young one, this is not a tragedy. You have just gained a friend for life, a powerful friend. It may seem bad now, but… well, you’ll understand when you experience it.”
She turned and gestured at one of the dragons, a hefty, green-gray beast who was using his claws to sever some of the cords that held the cage together, sawing slowly at them. “That’s Crush. I’m his Anchor, and I couldn’t ask for a different life. Just give it a chance, okay? You’ll see.”
I nodded, again looking at the ground, but I didn’t believe a word of it.
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My dragon and I didn’t speak to each other again until we got back to the eyrie, where everything moved too fast for words. Dragons were always coming and going, flying in and out from the massive, open ledge at the edge of the cliff. A few young dragons, too young for their wings to be of use, were policed back from the edge by an elder, who rumbled sternly at them in the dragons’ tongue and made gentle swats at them with his claws when they seemed reluctant. They scampered off, cackling, and one almost ran me over. “Sorry!” she squealed, and bolted again.
I was almost staggering at the immensity of it all, and I felt in danger of falling over when a hard nose poked me in the back. I turned around and jumped when I found myself face-to-face with my dragon, again staring into his black, depthless eyes. Thankfully, he didn’t seem quite so powerful, and I was able to look away. I realized, for the first time as I looked at his face before I glanced down, that he was pure, snow white.
“What you looking at your toes for? They’re not that interesting.” he asked rudely, his scratchy voice grating on my ears. He stretched his neck down and sniffed at my feet, and I stumbled back with a squeak. I was suddenly shier of this dragon than I had ever been of anyone.
He looked at my face again and harrumphed. “You’re strange,” he said, and turned around to walk away.
“Not so fast,” Crush said, suddenly seeming to appear in the way, “You have to stay with her and at least one escort until we figure out how mad you are,” he said gently, reaching down to touch my dragon’s head, but he shrank back.
Crush glanced at me, then back to my dragon. “Has he told you his name?”
I shook my head.
“Well you’ll have to name him, of course, but we call him--” and then he said something that couldn’t be written in ordinary letters. It was some word in the dragon language, and I felt like my brain shrunk away from even hearing it properly.
“What does it mean?” I managed to mumble. Thank the gods that dragons have good hearing.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “I’m not so good at translating between the languages. Not even sure I've heard the word before.” He just shrugged. “You’ll think of a name the both of you like before long. Now where is…” he spotted another dragon, a green female with yellow mottled patterns on her back and feet, and yelled to her in dragon language. She looked at him and her eyes narrowed a little bit, but she walked over.
“Yes?”
He started speaking in dragon language, taking two steps toward her, and she looked at him with suspicion at first, and then at one point, hissed in response to something he’d said, but then in a moment looked a little more cheered.
My watching them was interrupted by my dragon making a sudden, loud gagging noise, and both of the adults looked at him in surprise, then Crush’s face seemed to turn color--was it a blush?
“Are you okay?” I asked, a little concerned--but if he kicked the bucket, would I be able to go home? Maybe--
“I’m fine,” he said, looking at me like I was dense. Crush shuffled his feet.
“Come along, you two,” the female said, then swept past us and headed towards a large stone building a good distance from the cliff’s edge. My dragon followed her at once, and I struggled to keep up with their long strides.
“I’m Aeshal,” she said over her shoulder as she lead us, “You two will be staying with me and my sister and our Anchors for now so we can keep an eye on you.”
My dragon tried to slow down a little so I could walk beside him, but I was too scared to--not to mention that his wingtips flicked awful far when he took big steps, and I was afraid he’d knock me right over. I stayed behind him, out of reach of his tail, and he just snorted and carried on.
Aeshal went through a stone archway big enough to easily admit a dragon, though once inside, the ceiling lowered enough that she had to duck her head. Most of the room was empty, the stone floor lightly worn but not rutted, though off to one side there was a large table and chairs, made of very thick, hard wood, and a fireplace that had only embers glowing.
“Shanny, come meet our guests!” Aeshal called, and from another chamber came another adult female dragon. Her color was hard to see in the dim torchlight, but she looked almost the same as her sister--maybe a little darker.
“This is Shannika, Shanny for short, my sister.”
The new dragon lowered her head right down by us to sniff us, a big smile on her face, frightening another whimper out of me. I tried to hide behind my dragon, but he wasn’t quite tall enough.
Aeshal stifled a laugh. “You have no need to be afraid of us,” she said gently. “We won’t hurt you. We may be big, but we’re very good at being gentle.”
“Are these the two who we'll be keeping? Where will they be sleeping?” Shanny asked, bumping noses with her sister in greeting.
“I thought upstairs.”
“Oh good!” She again put her head down only feet from me. “You two go ahead up the stairs and look around. Our Anchors aren’t here right now, but you can give yourselves the tour. Just stay out of the two rooms with locked doors.” Her voice was almost a purr, and she spoke softly, and somehow I managed to calm down a little in spite of how close her giant, yellow eyes were.
My dragon tapped me on the back with his tail, almost knocking me over. “Come on, then,” he said cheerfully, and headed for the staircase in the corner.
It was a human staircase, though substantially wider than any I’d seen in a home, but he was still small enough to walk up it easily enough. I followed meekly as he clumsily unlatched the door at the top of the second flight with his wingclaws, then bonked it with his nose. It swung inward with a soft creak.
He padded in, footfalls soft, but then stepped to the side, stopped, and flicked his tail. I stood waiting for him to move, and he gave me a look.
“What?” I squeaked softly.
“Go around me,” he said crabbily, and the moment I was out of the way of the door, he reached up and caught the doorknob with one wingclaw, pushing it shut. Again a soft creak, then a click, and the sound of the dragons talking downstairs was silenced.
I expected him to carry on and explore, and I would follow meekly behind, but he just stood there looking at me for a moment.
“Tolla,” he said finally, and I frowned in confusion. “Tolllllla,” he repeated pensively, more to himself than me. “Nice enough name.”
I didn’t say anything, but blushed slightly.
“I don’t have a name. Not yet. You know that, right?”
I sorta shrugged, and he lurched forward suddenly and poked me in the stomach with his hard nose. “You don’t know if you know it?”
I staggered slightly, even though he hadn’t hit me that hard. “That dragon said I’d have to name you,” I said softly, leaning against the wall and crossing me arms. Why were we stopped here talking? Why couldn’t he just carry on and look around? I didn’t want to talk to him. To be honest, he scared the daylights out of me.
“Yes,” he said, “I have my dragon name… but I don’t know how to translate it any better than Crush did. And you certainly can’t pronounce it.”
I looked at the floor.
He snorted. “Once we get someone to escort us out of here, we’re going to the library. We’ll find some book, or even some one, who knows what my name means. Maybe then you’ll have an idea of what to call me. Unless you’ve already thought of a name?” He sounded oddly hopeful for someone who was about to have his moniker for all time decided by me--he didn’t even seem to like me!
But I had nothing. I supposed I could have tried to call him Whitey or Snow or something else, but… somehow I knew that he wouldn’t like a simple name. He thought an awful lot of himself for such a young dragon, that much was clear already.
He sighed. “Figures. Alright, I’ll just continue being 'the freak' for now.”
He turned and swept past me, almost hitting me with a wingtip, and went on down the hall. He tried one doorknob, but it was locked--then the next one opened. He stuck his head in, and I snuck up behind him and peeked over him to see inside.
It was pretty dark, but I could make out a bed and some other furnishings, and many little dark shapes around the room.
My dragon shut the door with a soft snap. “Someone’s bedroom,” he said gruffly, and turned around, almost running into me. He narrowed his pitch black eyes and shuffled around me, then onward.
The next room was completely empty and even darker, because it had no window. He padded inside and sniffed, but then came right back out, uninterested.
The fourth room had a single-person bed and a few furnishings, and an odd, ovular, shallow pit in the floor off to one side that my dragon seemed very interested in. He walked in a circle inside it, then sniffed it thoroughly, then abruptly laid down. I stood near the bed and watched him.
“It’s a nest for me,” he said, and I was glad I didn’t have to ask. “It needs a bed in it, but it’ll do just fine until I get bigger.”
He stood up and went to the window--and I noticed for the first time how huge it was. He stretched up and tried to flip the latch open with his mouth, then his winclaws, but it evaded him. “Help me here,” he said, stepping aside, so I went forward and opened the latch--which was stiff and needed some oiling--and then shoved the window open.
My dragon climbed onto the wide sill immediately, almost knocking me aside on his way, and stuck his head outside into the breeze, looking overjoyed. He surveyed the courtyard carefully; it was deserted.
He looked back at me, then out again, then glared at me. “Tell anyone… and I can make you regret it.”
Before I had the chance to ask what he was talking about, he jumped out of the window.
I stifled a scream and rushed forward to look out, expecting to see him lying broken on the stones below, but just as I went to look down, he flapped up! His flight was labored and he flew in a small circle, then dove, then swooped back up and came right at me. I leapt back out of the way just before he landed neatly on the sill.
I could only gape at him, and he grinned a frightening dragon grin, showing all of his sharp teeth.
“Nice, huh? I’m not supposed to be able to fly for another couple years at least. The one time someone saw me trying, I got yelled at and my wings hobbled for a day--nice of them, since it meant I couldn’t walk either,” he said grouchily, raising one wing.
I looked down and realized something for the first time.
“You’re missing legs,” I said, then covered my mouth. “Oh gods I’m sorry, that was rude--”
He snorted. “Whatever. Everyone else makes fun of me for it. Don’t even care anymore.” He turned away and looked out the window again. “I’m a freak in every way--hadn’t you figured that out already?”
I didn’t answer, but backed up and sat down silently on the bed.
“I don’t have forelegs--at least my wings are built for walking on--my color’s unnatural, my magic is bizarre--I’ve been an outcast for years, suppressed all my life because I’m strange. One time I even heard one of my teachers asking another how long until I was slaughtered, he wanted me gone that badly. I have no friends, only enemies, and--” he stopped and just looked at me icily. “I don’t care if you’re one of them. Hate me all you want, but you’re still my lifeline. So keep me alive… and I’ll try to make this as easy as possible for you. Okay?”
I put my hands over my mouth in sympathy. My poor dragon… here I thought my childhood had been hard…
“Okay,” I said quietly.
“Good,” he snapped, and stalked out of the room, tail lashing.
I sat there on the small bed and cried.
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A knock on the door startled me. “Tolla? That’s your name, right?” a voice called.
“Come in,” I said shakily. I was well done with crying, but I still didn’t feel any better.
The woman who entered almost reminded me of my mother. She even looked similar. I caught my breath, standing up, and she sighed when she looked me over.
“Oh dear heart,” she said soothingly, surprising me by catching me in a hug, “I know it’s hard at first, getting uprooted like this… and paired with such an ornery dragon, too! But I’m sure he’s a sweetie under that hard shell. You’ll just have to crack him.”
She pulled back, still holding my shoulders, smiling and looking at me with such warmth that I couldn’t help but smile back.
“I’m Evie,” she said, releasing me and going over to shut the window, “Shanny’s human. I didn’t like her at all when we met--would you believe it? But we soon became the best of friends. I’m sure you and he will get along grandly once you get to know each other. After all, no dragon Anchors on the wrong person!” she spoke with such a sing-song voice that it made me laugh a little.
“I don’t even know him,” I said timidly.
“That’s right, he picked you up in the middle of the street, didn’t he? It’s awfully strange. Well almost anything is, with him. We’ll just have to get to know him so we can understand him better."
I’m not really sure what it was about her words that did it, but I started crying a little all over again. She noticed immediately.
“Oh honey, did I say something?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t like me,” I said, trying not to sob. “I don’t want to be here but if I have to, I’d rather have a friend but he just… he yelled at me a while ago.” I lapsed into silence and sat back down on the bed.
“No wonder he’s sulking around in the courtyard. He shouldn’t even be out there without you, but it’s not like he can get out without going through the house so I didn’t figure it would be a problem. Come see,” she said, gesturing to me from by the window.
I got up, wiped my tears, and went over to look. Sure enough, there was my dragon, curled up in a corner of the courtyard and just staring at nothing, his chin rested on his partially folded wings.
Evie promptly opened the window. “Are you going to come in for dinner in a little while?” she yelled down to him.
He gave her a slightly poisonous look, then sighed and called up, “Yes,” before putting his head back on his wing.
“There, now hopefully he’ll warm up to you a little over dinner, you seem like such a nice girl.” She smiled at me, still motherly. “The washroom is at the end of the hall if you want to go clean up for dinner.”
She left graciously, and after taking a moment to steel myself, I went as well.
