Dreamtrail Dragons |
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Chapter 3 |
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| Night is falling, the overcast sky darkening from dreary grey to inky black. In a silent dormitory the girl two girls sit, reading by the light of a single candle. As they read, they pause and check the cover, examining the picture of two dragons, one pearly white the other darkest blue, flying together in the night sky. One of the other girls moves in their sleep and they start, looking around fearfully. The hurriedly blow out the candle and creep back to their own beds, smiling at each other in the dark. In another room further along the corridor, a young boy is lying awake. He tosses and turns, worrying about what he can do, worrying about what it means. Most of all, he worries about telling his sister, telling her about the terrible secret she must help him keep. He curls up in a ball, unconsciously trying to hide from those who would hunt him. [ligne][/ligne] I wake to find myself in the ruined tower, curled around the white dragon. For a moment I am surprised to feel her there, but then the thought is lost. I must have made an involuntary movement for she wakes and begins to uncoil herself. I rise with her and we go to carefully look out the entry for the red dragon. We see and sense no sign of him in the falling dusk, so we leap out, into the air. We glide along the coastline, ducking in and out of the many coves, showering each other with spray. As the moon rises higher, we leave the water and soar up, up, towards the stars. We spin and dive, playing and hiding within the veils of fog as they creep towards the shore. At last we glide lower and, a suitably sandy beach appearing before us, land. We roll in the fine grains and shower the sand over each other, before wading back into the water to float lazily on the gentle swells. Buoyed up by the smooth water, I quickly fall into a trance-like state. [ligne][/ligne] The sky has cleared and moonlight shines strongly through a gap in the curtains. A beam of moonlight falls on the boy’s face where he is lying still at last. A frown briefly creases his forehead then vanishes. Further down the corridor, the girl rolls over, before settling again. At the same time a shadow falls across the round disk of the moon. A lunar eclipse. As the moonlight fades, a picture forms on the cover of the book on the floor. A dragon, with scales blazing like the sun, surrounded by a cloud of fog. [ligne][/ligne] I become aware of my surroundings again and find myself floating in a dense cloud of fog. It hems me in, weighing me down and blocking my sight. In a panic I call out to the white dragon, waiting tensely until she swims over, appearing through the mist like a ghost. With her there safely I start to calm down, my irrational panic fading now that I know she is safe. At that moment, the fog tears, allowing a stray beam of moonlight to hit the water. As the silver light scatters, my panic returns, stronger than before. I leap up, out of the water, the white dragon close on my tail. With great, beating wing strokes we race back to towards the tower, my instincts screaming of danger. As we near the tower, we see the red dragon, looking somehow wrong, hovering awkwardly. She is invading our territory! I scream and lunge towards her, reaching out with teeth and talons. I can sense her fear as she turns towards me. Her wing beats falter and she drops, just missing my talons as they slice through the air. I wheel to face her again, aware that the white dragon has taken up a defensive position above the courtyard behind me. I lunge and again she backwings frantically, my teeth grazing the scales of her neck. I snarl at her as she continues to retreat, flapping clumsily through the air. Why won’t she fight? Why did she invade our territory if she is unwilling to stand up to us? She was willing enough to attack last time. I dive downwards, forcing her towards the waves, then pull up contemptuously without attacking. As I hover there above her, I realise I was wrong. It is not the red dragon after all. It is smaller, and the scales glow with orange and gold highlights. More than that, something tells me he is male, and he is missing the madness present in the red dragon. In fact, I feel a sense of kinship to him, similar to that with the white but different, closer. He is one of us. I notice the strange sound he keeps crying out. It sounds garbled, as though he is struggling to call, yet it strikes a familiar chord deep inside me. While I study the sun dragon, another sound faintly grows. I listen for a moment and recognise it as the splashing of water, strange, since the air is still and we are too far from the rocks to hear the ripples. As the sound grows louder, my sense of unease builds and I find myself tensing to fight again. Out of the mist, a strange shape slowly emerges. It seems to be a large platform of wood floating on the water, the ends shaped to form raised points. In the middle, a tall wooden log has a square of something soft and flat hanging limply in brightly coloured folds. Sticking out the sides of the platform are many smaller sticks. These are what make the splashing sound as the move in and out of the water. I now see the strange creatures moving the sticks and scurrying around on their hind legs. They are small and pink, covered in scraps of the thing hanging from the central post. A window opens in my mind and I realise that the creatures are humans and the platform is a sailing boat, although different to any I have seen before. As I realise this, alarm bells go off in my mind and I instinctively swerve to the left and climb out of range, narrowly missing becoming entangled in the net that was just thrown. Instead, it falls on the sun dragon, who, unable to move as quickly, is trapped and dragged down to the boat. I swoop closer to see if he can be rescued, but can find no way of doing so without endangering myself. I turn to leave, there is no point risking being captured as well, just to rescue a rival dragon, even if there is a tie between us. He should have been quicker to dodge. As I gain height again, a brisk wind springs up, blowing away the fog and ship like a bad dream. Just before the ship is lost to view through the retreating mist, the dragon calls out; that same strangely familiar sound. This time, when I hear it, images flood my mind and I see: A summer beach; all clear, blue sea and sky, and warm, golden sun and sand. Over by the rocks, a boy is playing, looking in the rock pools. Suddenly, a big wave crashes over the rocks, knocking the boy over. As I run towards him I can see that his leg is caught in a crack in the rocks. He turns towards me and calls out, calls my name desperately. The call of the boy and the call of the sun dragon merge and I realise that they are the same. The dragon whom I had just been fighting, whom I had scorned for not fighting back, is my own little brother. I call out to him, my throat struggling to pronounce the familiar name. I dive into the fog where the ship disappeared, only dimly aware that the white dragon has left her post and is following me. Once in the fog I loose all perception of time and direction, the strengthening wind causing it to billow and fold all around me. I am unable to tell which way is down, and I rely on my instincts and strange connection with the sun dragon to draw me onwards. At last the fog unravels, releasing us in a strange place. Exotic smells reach us from the land to the left, the shadowy trees very different from the piny firs I saw before. I ignore all this as I search for the ship, stretching all my senses into the lightening world. My connection with the sun dragon draws me onwards down the coast and I follow, all my attention locked on following that faint pull. I don’t notice that the sky is growing lighter by the second, stars winking out as pink stains the horizon. Neither do I hear the white dragon, calling me to land before the dawn. I ignore her as she drops down out of sight, focused entirely on finding my brother. A moment later the sun crests the horizon, shooting out spears of light. One of these stabs me, piercing me through the chest. I fall, the strength gone from my wings, tumbling towards the ground. [ligne][/ligne] The girl sits bolt upright in her bed, her heart pounding. Driven by the fear in her dream, she leaps out of bed and races to her brother’s room. He is sleeping quietly, peacefully, in the darkened dormitory. Much calmer now, the girl creeps forwards then stops suddenly. Now that she is close, the girl can see that something is wrong. He is too still, and surrounding him is a shimmering white net, seemingly made from threads of moonlight. She reaches forward and shakes him, her hands passing harmlessly through the light, but he does not wake. At that moment, one of the other boys gets up and opens the curtains, flooding the room with sunlight. When she looks back, the girl sees that the net has vanished and her brother is waking. He opens his eyes and looks up at her, his eyes filled with fear. Then the others start to rise and the fear is gone, replaced by a faint expression of confusion. The girl quickly slips back to her room and picks her book up off the floor where she dropped it. She looks at the cover and shivers, a finger of ice crawling down her back. It shows a net of moonlight filled with roiling grey fog. |
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