Andromeda

Spirits of the Flowers

When Ana died, Coe didn't notice at first. He no longer fit in their house they they built together, and so he slept in the cave nearby. Dragons can go without sleep for a long time, but they also need long periods of rest if they are to do so. He awoke after a week and yawned. He stretched out his body, careful of the cave that could barely fit him anymore. When he left the entrance he flexed his wings to stretch again, this time with much more room. It wasn't quite dawn yet so he decided to check on the sheep and cows to make sure none of them broke any fences. In his escapade he was quite careful to make sure each foot was over the fence before he put it down, but he neglected the same attention for his tail, dragging its full weight across the aged wood. He poked his head into (and a bit through) the door to the sheep's barn, and counted, pleased to find all of them accounted for. He moved to the cow's stables next, almost panicking when he only counted three just to puff with relief as the fourth's head peeked out from behind one of the separating walls. Of course it was Cucumber. She always made trouble and was the reason he always checked the fences for splintered or broken wood. Ana told him she was a menace, even though he had never seen her do anything. He had long ago come to the conclusion that she must be veeery sneaky. He pranced around the farm for a bit, looking for Ana, until the sun came up. That's weird, they are always up before the sun. He returned to the barn to let the sheep graze, and noticed that their water trough was bone dry. He would ask Ana about it later. He opened the gate for the cows as well, and noticed that there were many uncleaned cow piles in the stable, and every animal that walked out looked a bit thin. Normally he would avoid the chicken coop, not wanting to scare the poor birds like Ana said he did, but he ventured over there today. He hooked his tail onto the door and slowly creaked it open. the chickens all suddenly flapped out in a big mess of wings and feathers. They ran from him but today he didn't feel bad about it. He peered into the coop to find it full of uncollected eggs. Now he was starting to really worry. Even if Ana was just sick, he fell asleep a week ago, and they would have had someone come look after the farm, or simply woken him. He started to rush towards their house, using his wings to glide over the fences and to cover more ground. He smelled it before he even reached the house.

...

When Coesite left the farm he didn't inform anyone about the death of Ana Windrider. All he knew was that they had died in their sleep, and that they knew it was coming. He'd roamed for many years. He met other dragons and heard about how dragon knights get reincarnated, but he didn't bother thinking about it, though he would occasionally think back to the farm. He missed Cucumber. Since he didn't tell anyone about Ana, she had probably starved or died of thirst without anyone to take care of her. All of them probably had. Just another way he had failed Ana. This time no one was there to sing away his acid tears. He decided to sleep.

...

It had been about 138 years since he took up permanent residence at that lake and it had been 184 years since his knight died. There was a town nearby and the residents had always been kind to him. The children liked to watch him fly and would always ask for a ride. "Only the knight of a dragon can ride them." the parents would explain. This of course would be followed up by a gaggle of children asking to be knights. Coe would tell them about Ana, and their heroics. He would tell the little ones about their adventures, like the time when they saved a town from weirdly purple orcs, or when they almost lost to a pixie who had had a bad day, or the day when Ana slayed a corrupt king while Coe kept the guards busy. He would smile as he recalled these tales, always speaking fondly of their time together. all these stories always led to one question "so why are you alone now?" He could not answer.

...

Roughly 17 years later a person with unruly dark brown hair, a weathered chestplate, and a well kept sword at their hip bounded through the town toward the dark blue dragon.

...

They were laid on his back as he tromped through the forest, weaving around trees and the like. "So you just kinda left," they lay on their stomach with their chin resting on a fist. "Wanna talk about it? 'cus I didn't see you for over two lifetimes. I waited for like two-almost three decades before I came to find you in this one." He let out a small rumble in his throat "It hurt when you died," He takes a long pause as he maneuvers over and down a large rock. "I didn't know you were sick. I'm sorry." They clicked their tongue and rested their head on his neck, wrapping their arms around his scaly body. "Don't be. I never told you, so its sorta on me. I wanted to shield you from the hurt, but I think I just made it worse," They twisted their head into his skin. "Hey Coe? I love you." "I love you too Ana."

Later he found out that their name was now Mill.

...

Mill and Coesite were fighting a monster easily four times bigger than Coe, and Mill had been injured. A large tear across the expanse of their back rendered them useless in the fight. They had managed to hide behind a boulder while their brave friend battled the fiend. They had lost too much blood. While Coesite fought the beast, Mill died alone.

...

It was another 29 years before they reunited again. In this life they were named Kiersten. For this lifetime, Coe made sure they were safe. They settled together near a town. It almost reminded them of their old farm, except for the tall human woman who was there to fit into the house that now that Coe couldn't. Kiersten had a partner now for this first time in all of their lives. They were happy, yes, but they were also restless. They weren't used to a slow life and would often train, or build weapons, or keep watches, out of old habits. It hurt them to stay in one place, so when the opportunity came to protect their home from an owl bear, they took the challenge in a heartbeat. They were slow and weak, but with Coe's help they defeated it. "I just don't see how it got me. I did everything right. I used my shield when it swung, I used my sword when it didn't, and I was ready to dodge if anything came up in between." they grumbled as their partner wrapped their arm. Coe lay circled around the two protectively. "well my love, you did those things in a different life. Now you have a different body, a different name, a different story. Perhaps in some lives you just aren't meant to fight." they tilted their head back to rest against their friend. "I'm a knight. Its what I'm born to do. I don't think I can just stop because, what, I'm tired? Yeah, no. Sorry love but I think I'm stuck like this." Their partner sighed.

...

"Coe, I'm tired," Lev admitted as they curled up against the blue scales. "Not retire to a farm tired like two lives ago, but just exhausted. I've lived for eight lives now. I'm just...lost." Coesite rumbled next to them. "I don't know how to help you." he said as tears burned down his cheeks. Lev sang to him until they both fell asleep.

...

"So I'm thinking, what if you just find me when I'm a baby or something? I know you can smell me, so just do that!" they jumped over a log in their path. "Super easy. Then we can just fly away forever until I die, and we can see how far we get!" Coe places down a wing so they can be lifted overall small pit. "Maybe we can even find and get past the garden of nettles and to Nytiris' kingdom." He places them back down. "Wouldn't that be something." They look up at the sky and chuckle. "Do you think that the nettles would part since I've already died so many times? I mean you might just have to fly over them but you get the idea." Coe looks at them. He has seen them die many times now, and he knows that they just want to rest. Each time they die they get more and more reckless with their life, disregarding the value of each individual life and what could come of it. He does not blame them.

...

I am certain that the spell was the reason for the delay in reincarnation. It was just a delay, i could not bear the thought that I would never see them again. My Knight. My companion for over a century. I will feel their soul again. I had to feel their soul again.

Forcing my thoughts away from that spiral, and knowing that sleep would be elusive for awhile, I decided to go for a flight. Yeah, a flight. Some exercise would be good, and it would keep the others from overly worrying about me, the knightless dragon.

Cruising in a nice spiral, i let the warm up drafts give me a lift. And then I sense it. The soul, but different and far. I have to follow it. My Knight has been reborn!

After a day and night of flying, I finally land near a small farmer's cottage. Transforming into something harmless, i get as close as possible. The signal still seems wrong, but I don't care. My Knight and I can fix anything once we are together. Still searching for my Knight, I slip through an open window and right to a crib.

Three babies, hmmmm. One of them has to be mine. I hopped into the crib, sniffing each one to figure it out.

All of them. My Knight's soul had been split into three bodies. That might be a problem later, right now I'm just happy that I found them.

"Mama! There's a cat smelling the babies!"

Parents. That could be an issue. Human parents are typically protective of their younglings. And I'm not equipped to raise such young babies. Don't want to frighten the parents. What do cats do? Right, they purr. I could curl up by their heads and purr. Wait, feet might be better. No creature that meant to do harm would knowingly put themselves in a position to be kicked, as one of my Knights is currently doing.

No sooner than I got myself in position, an adult female human came into the room. This must be Mama. She blinked at the sight of me purring by her babies feet. "Well I'll be. Now don't you be disturbing the babes too much, don't be underfoot, and you'll have to get your own food. But I guess since you got here, you probably ain't going to leave."

We… were not. 

War had ravaged us, and sickness, and war once again, until our population dwindled beyond the point of recovery. We struggled against that, of course… we used genetic manipulation, and cloning, and even more desperate measures. None succeeded. When the humans came, we were sinking into apathy, only a few tens of us left. We had begun to discuss whether we should commit a mass suicide, or simply wait to fade away. 

And then the young species came, in their clumsy ships, and they asked us why we were so few. 

“We are becoming extinct,” we told them. “We have passed the point of recovery.” 

It is custom to avoid the races that are dying – once a species reaches the point of inevitable extinction, even war is suspended, and the fiercest enemy pulls back. The custom was born of plagues and poisons that could be carried forth from a dying world to afflict a healthy one, but it has the implacable weight of tradition now. After we are gone, after they have waited for the prescribed period of quarantine, there will be a fight for our world. Habitable worlds are few, and this is a good one, with plenty of free groundwater and thriving vegetation. It is a bitter thing to be grateful for the custom that allows us to die in peace, but we are grateful.

But the humans don’t know that custom, and they do not leave. They seem distraught, when we tell them we are dying, and try to offer their aid - but their technology is behind ours, and it is too late. When they realize that they can’t save us, though, they do something that bewilders us. 

“You’re damn lucky I’m not a swan!” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “They get by on their reputation for being pretty and graceful, but buddy, a swan ain’t nothing but a bigger, meaner goose. What do you all want swan wives for anyway?”

I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Honestly, I hadn’t actually stopped to think about that much. It had become a mark of status, having a demure, graceful woman following on your arm, always dressed in white and gazing soulfully about.

“They all seem very nice,” I said finally.

She pursed her lips thoughtfully as she finished pulling on the robes I’d brought with me. “Then there’s something else going on,” she said. “I’ve met my share of swans and not a one of them would put up with that shit. Are you sure they were swans to begin with?”

“Well, no, now that you mention it. I mean, everyone says that’s what they are, but I’ve never actually seen anyone else do it.”

“Do they talk? Act like humans? Do they seem intelligent?”

“Well, they are humans, so I suppose they must be, right?” This conversation was not going the way I had expected it to.

“Hah! Fat chance. Transmutation is just changing the shape of a thing. You turn a swan into a human and all you’ve done is put a swan mind in a human-shaped box. Wouldn’t do a wizard much good to be able to turn into a wolf or whatever if they suddenly only had a wolf’s brain to work with, would it?”

“So, you’re saying that if those women were swans originally, they’d still act like swans?”

“Hoo boy yeah,” she said. “Absolutely. Hissing, biting people, trying to build nests, shitting everywhere. The works.”

“Wait, but what about you?” I asked, desperately trying to get the conversation back on track. “You seem like a human, but you were a goose ten minutes ago.”

She grinned wickedly at me.

“I was shaped like a goose ten minutes ago,” she said. “And I appreciate the makeover. But I wasn’t a goose to begin with. Now come on. There’s something hella creepy going on around here, and we’re gonna figure out what.”

She started walking back up the path towards town.

“Wait!” I shouted, hurrying after her, “If you weren’t a goose, then what are you? And what’s your name?”

Gwydd beckons me to keep up as she heads to town. “If you must know, I’ll give you the short version. I am a sorceress. I came to this place to track down an arcane anomaly affecting my spells. Triangulating the source eventually, I came here and…became a goose involuntarily. I have yet to discover how. And now that I have answered your question, tell me, why didn’t you just cast Awaken on a shrubbery or something? At least then it would have intelligence near your own, even if it would be naive as a babe.”

“It’s just the newest cool thing to do, I suppose. So many others said they had transmuted a swan, and their wives always seemed so demure and mindful. Though upon reflection mindful does not fit well as a descriptor.”

“It does not fit well for these young wizards, either. Well we’re going to find out what this is all about, and I’ll be dispelling some wives very soon. By the way, I am NOT marrying you, if that wasn’t obvious to this point.”

I smiled and hurried after Gwydd. This was going to be much more fun than anything I had planned.

The first “swan-wife” I pointed out to Gwydd slumped as she cast her spell to remove magical effects. She didn’t cast it as I was taught to construct a Dispel Magic spell. There weren’t enough hand gestures or words spoken. It wasn’t even a word, more like a quick melody.

A strange grinding and clacking began to come from the still woman, and as I turned to Gwydd to confirm that she hadn’t done something very nefarious, observers in the room erupted in a frightened chorus.

“By the gods! Her arm’s off!”

And it was. Her right arm had fallen from her body onto the ground, and even more alarming, the loosed connection between the separated parts revealed gears and cogs.

“Is that an automaton construct?” I whisper to Gwydd.

“Why yes. I believe these young wizards have been acquiring their wives from an enterprising artificer. And it was obvious just looking at the ‘husband’ that he didn’t have the arcane wherewithal to transmute a fly. Thankfully I was here to free the captured soul that was its power source.”

“Wait, constructs are powered by…souls?!”

Gwydd nodded to me solemnly, “It is a wretched act to create, one that knots the weave of magic itself. And I begin to have an idea why I was drawn to this place, and why someone would want to stop me from investigating its core. Are you in?”

When it hatches as a caterpillar, it lowers itself to the ground on a strand of silk, and then produces a chemical that smells like the larvae of ants. An ant eventually discovers it, lured by the scent, and brings it back to the anthill, where it is cared for by the colony until it pupates. After a few weeks, the adult butterfly crawls back up through the anthill, through the dirt and the winding tunnels, and out into the sunlight before it can finally open its wings.

Some say that the caterpillar “tricks” the ants into doing this. I don’t know if I agree – I think it’s too small a thing to accuse of guile, don’t you?

With this in mind: Once upon a time, there were seven dwarves.

They lived and worked in the mountains, mining for gold and jewels and precious things. And one night, after a long day’s labour, they heard a knocking at the great stone doors of their mountain.

Outside, shivering and small, they found a human child.

I’m sure you can guess most of what she told them. Stepmothers were involved – it’s not important. What’s important was that each of the dwarves felt a dire and pressing need to care for the child, and they took her into their home, fed her, clothed her, and gave her a warm bed to sleep in. And many seasons passed around that mountain, with the dwarves raising the child as one of their own, until one autumn’s day.

The girl laid, slender and still, in a coffin of spun glass. And some weeks later, one of the dwarves had the idea to call for a prince. This was of course the sensible thing to do, and the prince of a nearby kingdom who listened to the story thought an ensorcelled girl would be a grand thing to rescue.

Poor devils. It feels cruel to judge them. But there were so many questions they could’ve asked – what was this stepmother’s name? Was she real? Did she exist? Who had made the glass coffin? Surely one of them must’ve thought of the question. And why did it grow more opaque with every passing day?

Were they wrong to trust?

I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The moment the prince stepped into the subterranean chamber with the glass coffin, it shivered with a twinkling, plinking noise. Threads of glass exploded into glittering, razor-edged confetti.

A claw split the great glass cocoon.

The thing that spilled out of it, hulking and huge, knew in the fog of its mind, in a base animal sense that screamed, that it was in a room too small for it to fit. It wanted up. It wanted out.

In front of it was some twiggy little thing holding a sword.

It took its first breath.

The flames were the colour of cornflowers.

The dwarves fled. The thing followed close behind, up, up, up through the stone and the winding tunnels, not to chase, not to hunt, but to get up, to get out, out, out–

It struck the great stone doors at a run. They crumbled like gingerbread. And then there was sunlight, and the open sky…

And it could finally open its wings.

Convergent evolution is a hell of a thing.

The dragon, of course, lived happily ever after with its loot of gold and jewels from a hastily abandoned dwarf mine. Being much bigger than a caterpillar, we could accuse it of tricking the dwarves who were kind to it, had taken it in, had fed and clothed and warmed it.

I look around and see. Cars. Normal freeway sights.

“Over on the second road,” he clarified.

I looked farther out to where another freeway was merging with ours and just see a semi hauling a massive fucking boulder.

It was so heavy you can see the truck is almost scraping by and we were laughing and wondering why this rock was being hauled around when my manager goes, “Oh my god, look, there’s a second rock!”

And lo. Rock number two.