#ulaia

It was the night before her wedding, and Anarath’s mind drifted to the place between memory and dream, where the Song shifted and colors bloomed between its notes, and the haze of her nearly-sleepy thoughts gave way to reminiscence.

Her weaveheart pulsed with its own off-kilter rhythm as she delicately sifted through its strings with her mind’s claws. She peered into the pictures they conjured like she was flipping through a fractalized photo album, with every image crystalized into a bright singularity that unfolded before her at the slightest touch.

Anarath didn't remember things the way other people did. It had taken her a long time to realize that. You could never truly know how the mind of another worked, but in the hazy dreamscape of her weaveheart, she made the connection. For most people, memories were images and sensations, fleeting flashes of cognition in their mind’s eye. For her, memories were not that different from dreams when she lost herself in them. They embraced her and guided her into a malleable world within her subconscious; one centered around reality but not beholden to it. In this world, she slipped into another place, another time, and lived them all over again.

Right now, the outside world had mostly faded away. If she focused, she could just barely make out the feel of her bed linens beneath her and the curl of her tail and wings around her form. Voices drifted in with the smell of the fire in the center of the tent and the smell of its smoke. Verglas and Seveon were talking about…

The memories grew fuzzy as one world began to feel more real than the other. She had leaned too far out. She imagined herself wandering through a library, eyes scanning the spines of the books to find something that would interest her, something that she could use to pass the time between now and the biggest night of her life. The more steps she took, the more vivid the scene grew, until she could hear the click of her talons against a smooth marble floor, feel the swish of her tail brushing against shelves, and hear the distant mummer of patrons that didn't quite exist.

She turned a corner, and for a moment she saw hazy white nothingness until another row of books materialized in front of her. Tail brushing against the shelves, she craned her neck to scan the titles again.

Discussions With Verglas On Political Philosophy.

That seemed a little too boring for today.

Meridia’s Explorations of the Depths

Interesting… but not what she wanted right now.

Arguments With Astra About Her Ego Case.

No. Definitely not.

Moments With Ulaia.

She stopped.

Gingerly, she pulled the book out with a claw, being careful not to damage any of the pages in the process. Sitting back on her haunches, the dragon cradled the book in her foretalons as she let it splay open before her. The pages contained an image that shone out like a hologram, except it was a hologram that pulled her inside instead of projecting itself outwards. She fell forward into the memory and was immersed within another world once more.

She found herself in a familiar sitting room, one that immediately sent waves of nostalgia through the dragon’s mind. It had only been a few days since they had last visited Skaia’s treetop home again, but even if it had been centuries, she didn’t think she could ever forget it. It was where she and Ulaia had truly gotten to know each other for the first time.

The sun had just set, and moonlight shone through the windows, complimenting the flicker of candlelight that illuminated their conversation. Ulaia seemed to blend back into the shadows as she flipped through the pages of one of Anarath’s books. Anarath watched her, trying not to appear overbearing, yet eager to hear the owl’s thoughts.

“It seems… Interesting,” Ulaia replied. There was a hesitance in her voice. She hadn’t been as comfortable with her then as she was now. Anarath had saved her life, but they hadn’t yet fallen in love. Even then, Anarath had known there was something special about Ulaia. She had had crushes on female dragons back in the tower, but none of them ever seemed to have any time for her. Ulaia was different. There was something between them; something more than just the relationship of doctor and patient. What it was, Anarath hadn’t been able to say, but she had felt it growing with every moment they spent together. A lot of bad things had happened to the two of them in the Tanglewood, but Anarath couldn’t help but look back upon it fondly. It had been a time of possibility and anticipation as she waited for the seed they had planted to grow into romance.

By this point, she had found out Ulaia was attracted to girls like she was. She also knew Ulaia was an avid reader. So, when neither of them had been able to sleep one night, she took the owl aside and showed her her collection.“You can tell me if you don’t like it,” Anarath replied, tilting her head to the side.

“It’s not that I don’t like it, I just… It feels very… derivative, I suppose.”

“Astra says that a lot.”

Ulaia shuddered. “Stars. No offense, but she seems like a real bitch.”

Anarath’s first instinct was to defend her clutchmate, but Astra’s recent actions had been… concerning.

“She can be,” she replied instead. “But I think she’s overcompensating a bit.”

To her surprise, Ulaia let out a chirping laugh.

“Was that funny?”

“A little bit, yeah. A lot of the males around here used to act like that when they realized how much smarter I was than them.”

Anarath let out a small snort, and their eyes met. There was… something that passed between them. Their gazes remained locked for just a moment too long to be a casual glance. A small spark ignited within her, but it was gone before she could realize what it was.

They broke eye contact and Ulaia looked away. She shuffled her wings, and Anarath remembered with a shock how barren and twisted they had looked when she had been suffering under Sestris’s curse.

She’s come so, so far, she thought, practically swelling with pride.

“Well, if you don’t like that one,” Anarath eventually continued. “Try this one.” She passed her another book. This one was darker, a bit more… sophisticated. Ulaia took one look at it and smiled, reaching out to grasp it with a talon.

“Oh, this one. This one is a favorite. Perhaps your taste can be redeemed…”

The memory began to fade, and Anarath became aware of the library once again. She turned a page in the book, and was swept into another moment.

At first, she couldn’t see anything, and she wondered if something had gone wrong, if her connection was broken, or if the memory had been damaged somehow, if such a thing was possible. Then, she felt the soft, silky plumage covering her snout, and heard the faint, muffled moans from somewhere above her head, and felt a flush steal over her snout.

Ulaia moaned as Anarath’s snout stuck between her legs, her feet grasping against her neck as she squeezed tightly, pulling the dragon in. Anarath’s thick tongue filled her slit, exploring the sensations and textures within, and eliciting a sweet barrage of owl song from her mate.

Only… They hadn’t actually been mates at this time. This was their first night on the beach of the Tanglewood together, the night they had first decided to start dating. After sharing a messy kiss together, they had snuck off behind some rocks while their clutchmates slept. Anarath was supposed to be taking watch, but instead, she was snout deep in her crush’s slit, thinking about how attractive she was and trying to figure out how sex between them could even work. They hadn’t known for sure, and so elected to try one of the most reliable moves in the lesbian playbook; oral sex.

What had surprised Anarath most about the encounter wasn’t how much she had enjoyed Ulaia’s flavor, nor how difficult it was to keep from moving too fast or pushing too deep. No, it was thinking about how fucking hot it was that she was servicing a bird so close to her clutchmates who she knew would probably pop a blood vessel if they ever found out.

She was jolted out of her focus by a sudden thump from the physical world. One eye cracked open, letting her surroundings flood her awareness, driving away the memory in the process. She was in the large communal tent in the Selestica Refugee Camp, and she was staring directly at a surprisingly lewd scene. Verglas had fallen over onto his back, the base of his and Astra’s long necks leaning against a wooden bedframe that had surely been the source of the sound. Prince Seveon Azeryth of the Arcadian Commonwealth straddled their tail, leaning over their form and clamping his jaws around Verglas’s in a deep kiss.

She smirked a little as pride for her clutchmate filled her. Then, she drifted back down into her weaveheart.

It took her a few moments to recollect the visualizations she had left behind. With her eyes closed and the sounds of her clutchmate and his fiance drifting away, she re-entered the library. The book materialized into her talons, and she gazed back into the page, now showing a new memory.

Lannis’s Retreat. She felt a pang of nostalgia jolt through her as the memories came back. Lannis’s Retreat had been a place of inequality, of desperation, of dying hope. A lot had happened there, and a lot of it had been bad. But it had also been the closest thing she’d had to home since leaving the Tower. Astra’Verglas had found a place for themselves in the world. She and Ulaia had helped each other. The city had been a place for them to regroup in comfort and plan for the future. Then, it had been taken away.

The memory wasn’t about any of that… although, in a way, maybe it was. It was a crowded evening at a restaurant recommended to them by Resuki, if she was remembering correctly. Anarath and Meridia had been talking, and both had decided to approach their respective partners about the idea of going on a double date - how Verglas’s inevitable presence affected the math there, Anarath didn’t know, but she had liked the idea. Surprisingly, Meridia had been the one to suggest it, having been thinking about the various romance novels she had read fragments of over the shoulder of her oblivious clutchmate. Anarath had agreed, but the night hadn’t gone quite the way either had anticipated.

“I don’t know what about this is so confusing,” Verglas had insisted. Perhaps, if they had waited only a month or two from this night, it would have been a triple date with him and Seveon, but as things were, he was a bit of a third wing - one that was having difficulty not injecting his own opinions into the conversation. “It’s disrespectful to waste someone else’s money like that.”

“It’s not someone else’s money, Verglas,” Ulaia retorted, her eyes tinged with annoyance. The conversation had started as banter, but was threatening to become something uglier the longer it went on. “It’s the commonwealth’s money.”

“Even more reason to not spend so much!” Verglas countered. “That money is tax money! We’re taking it directly from the pockets of the people!”

“No, Lannis is taking it from the pockets of the people,” Ulaia retorted. “At least this way, it’s going back into the local economy instead of the war effort.” Verglas snorted and arched his neck in irritation, looking down at Ulaia. “I don’t see what qualifies you to make that sort of judgment. You aren’t an official of Lannis’s Retreat - you aren’t even a citizen!” “Neither are you,” Anarath pointed out.

“Yes, which is why I’m not going to make that decision,” Verglas huffed.

“I don’t really see the problem,” Meridia replied. “Does Lannis never use that money to feed himself or his family?”

“Well… He would, yes, but the people give him their taxes knowing what he’ll use them for. This isn’t part of that!”

“You’re reaching, Verglas,” Ulaia interjected. “This isn’t a democracy. Lannis gave you this money so that you could eat. We’re all eating now, aren’t we? And I think on a double date it’s worth getting a bit extra.”

Astra and Verglas both glowered at Ulaia. The two had never particularly liked having their authority challenged, and at the time they were still working through that tendency. Not to mention Ulaia’s rocky relationship with the rest of her clutch. Anarath was beginning to worry that this had been a mistake. Maybe Ulaia was right when she insisted that these weren’t her people. She was here for Anarath, and was stuck with everyone else.

“Please, Verglas,” Meridia insisted. “This isn’t even your date. The depths is swallowing the entire world, and you’re worried about whether or not we’re getting an extra appetizer? This is silly.”

“Well, that’s certainly a hyperbolic way of putting it,” Verglas muttered. Still, he didn’t speak again for a while, his head leaning away from the four of them as he looked uncomfortably out of place. Not for the first time, Anarath wondered how the two of them did it. She couldn’t imagine not even having her own body to herself. How could someone truly be their own person like that? Did Astra and Verglas ever resent each other? Did they do so now?

She pulled herself out of the memory. This one was rather uncomfortable. There was a time and a place for memories like that, and she didn’t think this was either.

The next page was another dark one. It was nighttime, the lights were off, and her snout was buried in her mate’s plumage again - but this time, she could hear her mate crying.

She was quickly able to recollect the scene. They were still in Anarum, alone in their bedroom in the inn. Things had been bad for both of them then.

Ulaia’s soft, coo-like cries filled her senses, and she wrapped her wings around her warm body. Ulaia was curled up in a semi-fetal position within Anarath’s limbs, but there was a firmness to her posture, a way that her breathing wavered between sobs, that let Anarath know how angry she was. Back then, Ulaia’s anger had been a curse.

“I don’t know if I can take another day of this,” she seethed, her beak barely opening to let out the words. “I don’t think I can take it, Anarath.” “You don’t have to,” she replied. “You’re far away from them now.”

“But I’m not,” she replied. “I never can be. There isn’t a distance in the song I can fly where I won’t remember the way they looked at me. I gave up everything for them, and they cast me out and left me to die. I’m such a fucking idiot for ever thinking I was one of them.”

Anarath squeezed her even tighter. “You aren’t the idiot, Ulaia. They are. They gave you up because they didn’t realize how lucky they were to have you. They never deserved you.”

“I wish they were dead,” she said quietly. “I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I close my eyes and see those hateful faces, and I imagine what it would be like to cut their throats. To watch them bleed out in front of me.”

“Stop it, Ulaia,” Anarath insisted. “You’re better than them. I know you are.”

She could feel the owl shake her head. “I… I don’t know, Anarath. I don’t know if I am.”

Anarath turned the page again. Skipped ahead a few more memories. Things were better now. She didn’t want to relive those moments on such a special night.

Eventually, she found a happier one. It was a small thing, so mundane she almost didn’t recognize it at first. The scene pulled her in, the large dorm room they had shared with her clutch in the Academy of Moons and Stars materializing around her. Another pang of nostalgia. She missed this room. She liked the bookshelves that surrounded them on the walls, the way that every bed turned towards each other in a circle, the massive windows that opened up to the sunrise and filled her mornings with brilliant light. She had felt a sense of normalcy here for the first time in a while.

If only things had worked out better. She had often wondered what her life might have been like if she had been a normal student here, learning about the world and following her mate on her academic adventures.

The two of them were together, sitting in a beam of sunlight that warmed the wooden floor beneath them. Anarath was curled around Ulaia, who sat near the foot of their shared bed with one of her notebooks in her talons.

“I was thinking about taking some courses on alchemy,” she explained, pointing the tips of her claws at various items on a list she had made. “These ones seem promising. This one here would give me a basic rundown of draconic notation. It’s… something I still have gaps in.”

“What about that one?” Anarath asked, pointing to one labeled Theoretical Notation.

“Oh… That one seems fascinating, actually, but very advanced. It’s a course on alchemical notations that have never been able to be properly tested. They rely on conditions so specific, notations so complex, and flux so rare and esoteric that nobody has actually been able to actually put them into practice.”

Anarath frowned. “What’s the point, then? Why study them if you can’t even use them?”

“Even studying them stretches our understanding of flux and alchemy. By pushing our understanding beyond its feasible limit, it gives us an idea of what might be possible, and reveals possibilities that we may not have had the framework to consider before.”

“So… It sort of foreshadows the future of the field?” Anarath asked, blinking.

Ulaia let out a slight but warm coo of laughter. “I suppose that’s one way of putting it. It tells us where to look. And once we understand these things in theory, we can eventually simplify them and put them into practice for real. What might seem esoteric and theoretical now might just be common knowledge in the future.”

“I see,” Anarath replied. “That does seem like something you’d like. Why don’t you enroll?”

“Well… Like I said, it’s very advanced… I’m not sure I have all the prerequisites.”

“Oh,” Anarath replied simply. “Well that’s dumb. I bet you know more about alchemy than half of the people there.”

“You’re really overselling me, Anarath,” she chuckled, leaning back into her partner’s scales. “Thank you for the confidence, though.”

Anarath craned her neck over to look into her mate’s eyes. Those dark, starry eyes. She could get lost in them forever.

That was, as far as she could remember, one of the first moments she had seriously considered marrying her.

She pulled out of the memory, and turned another page. And then another. She relived memories over and over, piecing together the moments that had made up their relationship. Somewhere around her, her clutchmate left to find a more private place with his own mate, and somewhere out in the camp, her fiance planned the wedding that would join them together forever within the song. She knew that as much as she cherished the memories in this book, it was still only the beginning of their story.