Serali ran through the dusty streets of Land's End with her hair flying out behind her. She was a gangly child, presently at that stage where she seemed to be all knees and elbows, and was often bumping into things or tripping over her own feet. Running was one thing that she did well, despite giving the impression that all of her separate parts were about to fly off in different directions, and she was currently racing down the street, enjoying the feel of the wind through her hair. The rushing sensation made her think of flight, of the way the wind felt on her wings during her frequent and vivid flying dreams. There was, however, an unpleasant factor to her headlong rush, for the principle reason behind it was a deep desire to reach her destination before she was spotted by the other children. She raced on, ducking down a side street that led past a couple of houses and then ended at the little blacksmith's shop.
Too late she noticed a shape lurking in the sharp shadows cast by the hot afternoon sun.
"Where do you think you're going, heron-legs?" Jerda stepped out in front of her, and she skidded to a halt just short of crashing into him. He was thirteen, two years older than she was, and still a head shorter. The children her own age had given up their bullying, if not their teasing and taunting, but the older ones had taken up the slack left by their younger siblings. Though short he was stocky, and already developing a certain rough masculinity even at that young age. His skin was brown, his hair straight and black and his eyes were dark.
"I know where she's going," said a second voice, and Tris, Jerda's shadow, stepped out to stand next to him. Tris was of a height with Jerda, but thinner, more wiry. He too was darkly colored with deep brown eyes. Nearly everyone in the village was. "She's going to visit the other outlander."
Serali glared at them. "Why is it any of your business where I'm going?"
Jerda grinned. It wasn't a particularly friendly grin. "As the mayor's son it's my duty to help keep the village safe, of course. So I should make sure that you outlanders aren't conspiring together."
"Yeah, we got a duty," said Tris, and his grin wasn't any nicer.
"Some duty! I was born in this town just as you were, Jerda. Now let me by, I have an order from my father for Breck"
"How do I know you really have an order? Why you could be up to anything." The grin broadened. "Obviously we need to make sure you're telling the truth." He stepped forward, hoping to intimidate Serali into stepping back, but she stayed planted firmly in place.
"Don't touch me!" she snapped.
"I'll touch you if I want to," said the boy. "Here, have a nice pat," and he swung a fist at her. She fell back just enough to avoid getting hit, and then jumped on the shorter, but heavier boy. She didn't punch, but clawed at his face instead, and kicked at his shins. He yelped, and she grinned, her own smile fierce with victory. Then Tris piled into her from the side, managing to land several good blows. She turned to try and kick him too, and Jerda stuck out his foot at just the right moment and she tripped.
She didn't have a chance to get up, Tris immediately kicked her in the stomach, hard. She tried to roll away and get to her feet, but between the two of them their kicks were enough to keep her from getting up. She curled into a ball and put her hands over her head as the blows continued.
"Here now!" a deep voice bellowed. "What do you think you're doing?" The kicks stopped and Serali uncurled to see her tormentors fleeing down the street. She picked herself up with a groan. They hadn't done her any serious damage, but she was going to have bruises all over. She turned to find Breck, the village smith, trotting up to her. "Are you all right, child?"
"I'm fine, just a little bruised," she said. She dusted off her clothes and smiled at the huge man. He wasn't any taller than anyone else in the village and his hair was black, but his eyes were blue and his skin was as fair as Serali's own. The broad-chested smith and the gangly girl looked nothing alike, but it was easy enough to see why the others in the village tended to lump them together under the heading "outlanders."
"I wish there was something you could do about them, lass. It's not right, nor fair."
She sighed. "No it's not. But I'll be fine." Then she grinned. "Just give me a few more years and I'll be big enough to whip any of them."
He chuckled. "Aye, you probably will be. Am I right to think you were on your way to visit me when those scoundrels jumped on you?"
"Yes. Pappa has a couple of things he wants. I have a list."
"Well let's be on our way then," said Breck, and he set off down the street Serali trotted after him and soon caught up. Together they entered the smithy, which was attached to the side of Breck's house. It was a modest affair, a small forge, a smaller anvil, an assortment of hammers, tongs, and other tools. Iron bars were stacked in one corner and another was occupied by a heap of charcoal. The forge cast a glowing red light around the room and it was stiflingly hot.
Serali handed over her list and the smith surveyed it. "Looks like nothing particularly unusual this time. You can tell your father that it will all be to him by the end of the week."
Serali nodded and smiled. "That's what he said it should take, so he'll be pleased to be right."
"He often is," said the smith with a chuckle. "Now I've got work to do. You can stay and watch if you want, just keep out of the way."
Happily content to sit in a corner, Serali watched with fascination as Breck heated iron, bent it, folded it, and sculpted it into dozens of useful everyday items. She loved to come here and see things made, it was wonderful to watch as nothing turned into something before her very eyes. She was also fascinated by the fire, its leaping tongues that came in so many surprising colors and how the iron put into it copied its bright glow. She loved the way it danced and darted, but a bit of her fascination of late had become odd. She had experienced on several occasions an almost irresistible urge to put her hand in the fire. She had the insane feeling that if she did so, it would feel warm and pleasant on her skin, that she could play with it, dance with it like an Arandian dancer with her serpent. This irrational feeling frightened Serali a little, and it was made worse by the fact that it was not the only such that she had felt.
The other inexplicable compulsion was even worse than this. She had first encountered it while exploring a gully that led to the edge of the Great Escarpment. Looking over the half-mile drop to the dry desert floor below, she was seized by a desire to leap off the edge. It was not suicidal, she had no accompanying desire to hit the ground far below, rather she had the odd feeling that she could spread her wings and fly, as she did in her dreams. She could picture it precisely, the feel of wind in her face as she fell, the unfolding of her wide wings, the peculiar uplifting sensation as she caught the warm thermal that rose off the desert floor. It was so vivid she sometimes wondered if she had lived another life as a bird, but somehow that didn't feel right.
She loved the impossibly high cliff, partly because of how spectacular the view from it was, and partly because few from the village ever ventured in that direction, so she could be almost certain to be alone there. But now she felt a little nervous every time she went near it. She didn't want to suddenly give in to the crazed impulse and throw herself to her death. And yet like worrying at a loose tooth she couldn't help but worry at the strange impulse, and she kept going back to the cliff again and again.
Her reverie was interrupted by a noise at the entrance to the smithy. Standing outside holding the reins of a monster of a horse was Patren Longfoote. Serali immediately tried to make herself as inconspicuous in her corner as she could. She had taken to Brek instantly, when the outlander had moved into the village a few years past, but she had not taken to Patren at all.
Breck looked up from his work, and Serali saw a flash of distaste run across his face before he smoothed it out into a neutral expression.
"Hey Breck," called the other man. "I need to have this brute here re-shod."
"Alright, I suppose you want him done now, since you've hauled him along."
"You've got it right, blacksmith, I'm going on a bit of a trip soon and I'll need to have new shoes before I go."
"Bring him in then and I'll get started."
Patren came in through the big double doors at the front of the smithy, leading the horse behind. He was a large man, not as broad as Breck was, but taller. He too was from outside the village, having moved in from parts unknown a little more than a year ago. Unlike Breck, or Serali herself, he was dark skinned and dark haired, though taller than most of the village-folk. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because he was an open, charming man, unlike Breck's self contained taciturnity, he was fairly well accepted by the village folk. There was even talk of letting him be a part of the Mayor's council. But Serali's parents didn't like him, and Serali herself felt terribly uncomfortable any time he was near. He looked at her far too often, she thought, and she got the feeling that something very unpleasant was going on behind his dark, unfathomable eyes. He caught sight of her and turned that look on her now. She felt like a mouse cornered by a cat. Something in his gaze set off every instinct she had. There was something wrong with him, something that didn't show but that she could sense all the same.
She tried not to show how unsettled she felt and pretended to ignore him, turning her gaze back to the fire.
Fortunately shoeing a horse didn't take terribly long, and Patren was soon leading the big, ugly animal away. If he looked on the outside the way he is on the inside, thought Serali, he'd be uglier than the horse is.
"You don't like him either, do you?" asked Brek.
"No I don't. There's something nasty about him. He looks at me and I feel like it's making me dirty just from the looking. He's always polite to everyone, but I don't like him all the same."
"You're right not to, child. And never let yourself be alone with him. I don't know, of course, but I can guess. I've seen his like in the city before. They're fakes, all of them, and liars. What exactly he's hiding and what he's lying about I don't know, but I doubt it's anything good."
"I wish they'd pitch him out, if they're going to pitch out outlanders," said Serali sourly.
"I couldn't agree with you more, child. But no one here is going to be listening to either of us. They're good folk here, you and I both know that, but they're too used to seeing only their own. They're judging on what somebody looks like, and not what he really is." Then he picked up his hammer and shook his head. "Enough of that though. No use complaining about things that can't be changed." And with that he resumed his banging, the sharp clang, clang of the hammer on hot metal filled the room.
Serali awoke with a start, a feeling of something wonderful suffusing her. She lay in bed for a moment, savoring the knowledge of what day today was. Then she leaped out of bed, throwing on her clothes and rushing down the stairs from her little attic room. She alone, of all her siblings, had a room to herself. The rest of them were sharing two larger rooms on the ground floor. None of them were out of bed yet but in the kitchen her mother was already up, cooking. On days when there were travelers staying in the little inn she went over there well before dawn to get things ready for any who wanted breakfast and to make sure that all was well, but travelers were few at Land's End and most often she was home, cooking breakfast for her five children.
Serali's mother Marilla was a small, dark woman, beautiful in a plump and somewhat matronly way, who loved to cook and garden and who did an excellent job of managing her husband's business. She also had an enduring passion for cleanliness and would periodically decide that the house was too dirty and dragoon all five of her children into helping with the chore. Serali always complained, but she didn't really mind. She loved her parents and she was, by and large, an obedient child.
This morning Serali's mother was starting a couple of loaves of fine white bread, the kind she made only for special occasions. "Up already?" she asked in a teasing tone.
"As if I could sleep in today, Mama," replied Serali with a grin.
"Well, in that case, why don't I start breakfast? You can go get your slug-a-bed siblings up and send a couple of them down to give me a hand."
"Yes Mama," said Serali with a smile and darted off towards the back of the house, nearly plowing into her father Falio as she did.
"Slow down, long-legs, one of these days your legs are going to go so fast they'll leave the rest of you behind." Serali giggled. The teasing about her height angered her because it was teasing, and meant to hurt, and the ill-feeling behind it was what she hated, not the words themselves. From her father these similar words were a sign of his affection, and she didn't mind them one bit. Searli grinned up at him. He was still taller than she was, but not by a lot. A year or two more of growing like she had been of late and she would top him, and no doubt keep going after that. He too was dark, with thick curly hair that was just beginning to go gray. She gave him a hug, filed with enthusiasm, and then dashed on, shouting over her shoulder "If I ever slow down, it won't be today!"
Bursting into the room shared by her two younger brothers she hollered "Last one out of bed has to wash all the dishes!" and then dashed out again, slamming the door behind her. She repeated the procedure in the room shared by her sisters, the youngest of the five. Then, breathless, she dashed back to the kitchen where her mother was putting sausages into a pan to fry. She inhaled the spicy aroma. Sausages were one of her favorite foods and she wondered how in the world she was going to be able to wait until they were done.
There was a commotion behind her as her two brothers spilled into the room, cuffing each other in a half-friendly dispute of some sort. Marilla interrupted their tussle, setting them to work putting plates and forks on the table. When Serali's sisters came in they were similarly employed fetching various things from the pantry. When all was finished and the sausages were done the family seated themselves around the table. Serali was bouncing up and down in impatience but Falio insisted on invoking the blessings of the Creator before they began. Then, in a teasing manner he made a little speech. "Today is a most important day," he began. "Twelve years ago today an important event happened." Serali was squirming with impatience, but he kept speaking. "On that night, twelve years ago, Serali was born. And today is her day." He exclaimed it with mock pomposity. "Today we shall let her do whatever she pleases..."
At last it was too much for her. "Yes and right now what I please is to eat!" She interrupted.
"All right," her father laughed. "Let's eat then."
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Serali and she began to heap sausages on her plate.
Later on, while everyone else was doing dishes and helping to clean up, Serali decided that today she was going to go exploring. She informed her parents that she would be back in time for lunch and then set off towards the wild country that lay beyond the neat fields of the village.
Following a dry gully that meandered gradually towards the edge of the Great Escarpment, she mused about her life. Birthdays were always fun, but for her they had carried a bit of melancholy. Ever since she had been old enough to realize that she was different from her parents, from her siblings, ever since that birthday six years ago when her parents had told the story of her birth, how they had adopted her, she had wondered. Who were her real parents? And why had they abandoned her? Sometimes she despaired, thinking that they had not wanted her, that she had not been good enough for them. Other times she recalled what her adopted father had told her of them and imagined that she was being hidden from some great enemies, that her parents were royal, that someday they would return and claim her and she would become a queen. She had fond fantasies of rule, of how wonderful life as a queen would be.
Practicality tended to intrude though. Barona already had a king, who had plenty of offspring. And if she was the lost queen of some distant land, how could she leave her family behind? She loved her adopted parents too much to simply abandon them. And yet, they wouldn't be happy to leave the farm, the inn, their family home. Her father had inherited the inn from his father who had had it from his father before him and so on for generations. Someday her brother would inherit it. They would never be happy in some royal court. And besides, if her parents were royalty, why would they have left her here, of all places? Land's End was aptly named. The little road that wandered into the town stopped there and went no further. There was no further to go, for to the south lay the Great Escarpment, and to the west and the north were the cliffs and ravines and tumbled stones of the badlands. The road came from the east, from Barona, but the capital city was far, far away. Few of the villagers had ever been there. Certainly Serali never had.
Her thoughts turned from the city back to the great unknown of her parentage. She was twelve years old now. Twelve years was long enough for her to be fairly certain that either her parents had abandoned her completely, or they were dead. And what did it matter anyhow? Falio and Marilla were her real parents. They had raised her, whoever birthed her.
Her reverie was abruptly interrupted by a large hand on her shoulder. She was half lifted off her feet and spun around by the hand to get a view of its owner.
Patren.
Sudden fear washed over her and she yelped and tried to break free, but the man grabbed both her arms in an iron grip and wouldn't let go. She kicked at his shins and he knocked her feet out from under her, letting go and letting her sprawl on the ground. Before she could get up he'd pinned her, his face twisted with some strong emotion she couldn't name. She screamed, but she had wandered a long way from the houses and tended fields. There was no one to hear her.
"I had hoped you'd come here today," he said. "It's a special day, isn't it?"
She glared up at him, terrified but also angry, and said nothing.
"A special day for a very special girl. You're old enough to be a woman in some places now. And I want to show you how to be a woman. You're a pretty little child. So pretty..."
Her fear increased as she realized, with a shock of horror, exactly what it was that she saw in his eyes. What she had seen, and somehow known without knowing, all along.
She screamed again, and he put his hand over her mouth. "Hush my little girl, my Serali, I won't hurt you. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to show you. But not here. I know a better place."
He kept one hand clamped over her mouth, and the other was gripping her wrist so hard it hurt. He got up and dragged her up with him, started pulling her along the gully, back in the direction of the village. She dug in her feet and resisted, but the sandy floor of the dry stream bed gave her no purchase and he just kept going. She jerked and struggled and tried to free herself, but he was far larger and far stronger. Finally, terror grown to desperation, and desperation somehow banishing fear and summoning anger, she bit the hand over her mouth, as hard as she possibly could.
She felt a kind of fierce exultation as she tasted his blood and heard him scream. He let go of her for just an instant and that was enough. She was off, her long legs flying as she raced away from him.
She didn't know this particular gully, she had been trying to explore somewhere a little new this time, but she knew somewhere up ahead was the edge of the Great Escarpment, and she needed to get out of the gully before then. She scanned the sides for a place where she might climb up, but though there were a few she might have eventually managed, there were none easy enough to get up before Patren caught up with her. And as she went along the walls were growing higher and steeper. She glanced back and he was only a few yards behind. His expression now had rage mixed in with his unwholesome lust, and she felt terror spark in her again. She was trapped. She knew the edge had to be near, and there was no way she was going to get out before she reached it.
And then she did. She rounded a corner to see blue sky straight ahead. Only a hundred yards or so further and the ground simply stopped, dropped off, falling thousands of feet to the sandy desert below. She ran on anyway, having no other choice. Perhaps she might find a ledge, or some way to go across the cliff face. The upper parts of it weren't perfectly straight, she had found such places before. But when she stood on the brink and looked down and to either side the cliff face was smooth. There was no escape.
She looked behind again. Patren had stopped running. The rage was less strong on his face now, but that didn't make her feel any better. He was smiling, advancing on her slowly.
"You shouldn't have done that, my Serali. You were very bad, and I'm going to have to punish you for it."
"Get away from me," she yelled at him. "I'm not your Serali!"
"You are. You can't deny it, and you can't escape it either. Come, come here." He beckoned to her, but she backed up a step, now on the very brink of the cliff. Just one step back and she would tumble off the cliff to the ground. She could imagine it all too easily... And suddenly the insane impulse was back. Before her was unthinkable horror. Behind her was the rush of wind, the lift of her wings, the escape of flight. The conviction that she really could fly, that she would not die if she jumped, was stronger than it had ever been. And faced with the choice of Patren or jumping, her decision was easy.
She turned and leaped.
Her jump carried her away from the cliff face, so she fell through the open air. The wind rushed in her face and it was the wind from her dreams, the wind she had always imagined. She could feel it, could feel what it would be like for her wings to catch the wind and lift her. There was no fear in her at all now. The ground below was rushing up, but before she had even fallen half way she felt it.
The first sensation was unexpected, a kind of lurching and a flash of pain that ran over her whole body, but the second was the one she had been expecting, the feel of wind under her wings, and she spread them wide, catching the air and pulling up from her fall to glide out over the golden desert sand. She felt a wild exhilaration run through her. This was right! This was how it should be. Everything else in her life had been subtly wrong, and she'd never quite known it, but now that she was flying she felt it. She had been missing something and now she was whole, was herself.
And as she was changed, the world was changed. The colors were all subtly different, and the line of the horizon ahead of her was crisp and clear, her eyes seeing farther than they ever had before. She could see too a kind of tint, faint and strange but there, that swirled through the air, rising from the desert floor. As she passed through it, it lifted her, and she realized that it was warm air rising. She turned, keeping herself in the rising column, and spiraled upward until she was above the level of the cliff top that lay now some distance behind her. She could see her whole world laid out below her. The nearly featureless expanse of the Circle Desert, the layered red and orange and white of the escarpment, the red earth and dull green trees that topped it, the patch of gold and brighter green that marked the fields, even the village, the houses impossibly tiny in the distance, were all crystal clear to her. And she could see the rocks of the bluff that rose above the village some miles distant as well, as clearly as she'd ever seen them from the village itself, though she was easily twice that distance from it now. She could even see what she had never glimpsed before, the second plateau above the bluffs, that stretched on until it dropped off again into the beginning of the badlands.
She almost felt like she could fly forever, but while flying she couldn't see what she looked like. She felt different. Very different. So she angled down in a long, shallow dive that deposited her on the edge of the Great Escarpment, not too far from where she'd jumped off.
She landed with a bit of a thump, not quite having judged it right, but was unharmed. Filled with a sense of wonder she looked herself over. Holding up her hands before her face, she saw that they were four-fingered and that each digit was tipped with a sharp ivory claw. They were also covered in fine golden scales. Upon a brief inspection, she saw that all of her was similarly covered, the scales smaller on her hands and larger over her torso. Her frame was still slender, but longer, and deeper in the chest and broader in the shoulders, and her arms and legs were proportioned so that she could go on all fours as easily as upright. Her feet, she saw, had three long toes, each tipped with a heavy, blunt claw. She had wings, large and golden on top with pink-veined skin on the undersides. They were bat-like and the tips of the bones that supported the thin membranes sported long thin claws, as did the joint where the bones came together. She spread and folded them experimentally. Running her hands over her face she found that she was long-snouted with a webbed crest running from the top of her head down her spine. Glancing behind her she saw that it went all the way to the tip of her tail. With delight she realized that she was looking directly behind herself. Why I can turn my head all the way �round! She was also, as far as she could tell, something like twelve feet long. Though a good bit of that was tail.
Having completed her examination, there was only one conclusion to make. I'm a dragon, she thought. A real dragon, just like in the stories. And yet, some things were different. All the story dragons had horns, and they had big plates on their stomachs and spades on the ends of their tails. I don't have horns, my stomach is the same as the rest of me, and my tail just kind of ends. Are the stories wrong, or am I some other thing and not a dragon at all? she wondered. She glanced down automatically at the bracelet on her wrist, and was somewhat surprised to find it still there, having grown to fit her larger arm. Though it has grown along with me all my life, so I don't know why that should surprise me. The dragon there was just like the ones in the stories, not like her.
Then a distant sound interrupted her thoughts. Stone grating on stone with a rough crunch sounded from near by. She looked over to where the gully indented the cliff face just in time to see a large rock go plummeting over the edge. Suddenly her delighted musings were drowned out in a sea of red rage.
She unfolded her wings and dived off the edge of the cliff again. There was rising air here too, though not as strong as the column she had used earlier, but it was sufficient to carry her up. From above she saw the gully, saw Patren standing near the end of it, hefting another rock. After what he'd tried to do to her, he was just sitting there playing, like he was a boy on holiday! She was surprised to hear herself growling. She dived down out of the sky and with a snap! of spreading wings like thunder she landed in a shower of sand behind Patren. He turned around, startled by the sound, and then his eyes went wide and he gaped at her. There was neither rage nor lust on his face now, all it showed was fear.
She almost wanted to say something, to tell him exactly what she thought of him, but she was so angry she wasn't sure she could speak. She hissed at him and stood upright, spreading her wings to make her look even larger, though she was as much larger compared to the man now as he had been to her earlier.
"W-what are you? Go away!" He backed away from her, utter terror on his features. She felt a savage satisfaction to see it. Now he knew how she had felt. But her anger demanded more, and somewhat to her surprise when she opened her jaws a stream of fire came out. It was white-hot, hotter than any flames she'd seen except perhaps those in Breck's forge.
Patren screamed, though the flames had missed him entirely, and stepped back again. Stepped back one step too many, for his foot found nothing but empty air. He screamed again and was gone. Serali advanced and peered over the edge. It was too far to the bottom to really see his body, even with her excellent vision it was only a speck at that distance. But the speck was there. She felt a kind of tug-of-war inside her then. She was fiercely glad that the would-be rapist had gotten what he deserved, and yet at the same time she was regretful. She had been angry, yes, and had wanted to terrify him worse than he'd terrified her, yes, but she hadn't really intended to kill him. She hadn't really intended anything at all, she'd just acted on emotion. And now he was dead. She wasn't really sure how to feel about it. But at last she put it out of her mind and winged her way to a less memory-laden perch near the cliff edge, where she could consider what to do next.
Serali sat with her clawed feet dangling over the edge of the cliff, gazing unafraid into the gulf between her toes. Now what do I do? I certainly can't go home looking like this! But to just abandon my family . . . No, I can't do that either. Whoever, or whatever birthed me, Marilla and Falio are the ones that raised me. The are my parents. And my brothers and sisters, they need me. She sat long, pondering, until she reached her decision. There is no other choice available, she finally decided. I will sit here and try to change back until I succeed. If I fail, well, someday my bones might be found on this spot!
Some hours later, as noon approached, she decided that her inward proclamation might have been a little hasty. Still perched on the cliff she had tried to will herself human, putting all of her strength behind the thought but with no result in sight. Finally she sat back exhausted. This is not working, she thought, I must be doing something wrong. Then an idea came to her. I didn't change into this shape because I willed it, I changed because I imagined it. Maybe...
Standing upright, she straightened her back. Then she closed her eyes. She felt a warm breeze blowing over her face, she felt the feel of the gritty floor of the gully between her toes. She loosed her mind totally, relaxing into a creature of feeling. Then, when it seemed that nothing was left of her but the soft whisper of the wind and the solid feel of the ground under her feet, she brought into mind the feelings of wind in her hair, of the way it caressed her face, of the way her toes could feel the ground through the thin soles of her shoes; she brought all that to mind, remembering it, the way she had half-remembered the feel of wind under her wings as she fell. The real sensations seemed to fade until the remembered wind in her hair was stronger than the peculiar ruffle of wind blowing her crest. There was again that odd lurching feeling, that brief instant of intense pain, and then she opened her eyes.
Serali laughed, delightedly. "It works!" she crowed, "It works!" With a light step she set off to the village, to her home.
At the farmhouse everything seemed completely ordinary. It was strange to think that less than an hour ago she'd been a dragon, or something like it, and before that she'd been attacked, but now she was here, smelling the scent of lunch cooking. It was cheese pasta, one of her favorites and one they seldom had.
She stepped in the door, almost expecting everyone to notice something different about her, but her mother smiled and greeted her the same as always. "You look happy, did you enjoy yourself?"
She considered the question for a moment. "Yes," she said, deciding that the wonder of flight definitely outweighed the bad things. For a moment she almost said more, but she just couldn't picture it. "Hi mom, I'm a dragon and I killed somebody." How was she supposed to say that? She couldn't. Just then the door swung open, bumping her where she still stood just inside, and her brother Dentol came in, carrying a pitcher of milk from the well-house outside where it had been cooling since milking time that morning. A few drops sloshed over the edge as he tried to maneuver around the unexpected obstacle of his sister.
"Out of the way, sis, or you won't be drinking anything but water with your lunch."
"I'm moving! I'm moving!" she replied, and as the ordinary, if not quite everyday, activities of her family closed in around her she was able to put the rest of the day's events out of her mind and simply enjoy her birthday.
Her mother called out "Lunch is ready!" and there were footsteps from all over the house. Soon the whole family was seated in the kitchen. Serali ate slowly, savoring every bite. She watched with amusement as her brothers shoveled in food as if there was no tomorrow. They were both scrawny little things, but they could eat twice what she could three times as fast. Terla, the older of Serali's two sisters only picked at it. She didn't like cheesed pasta, but Serali had little sympathy, recalling a certain day some months ago when, for Terla's sake, she had been forced to eat a plate full of steamed crook-neck squash, one of her least favorite foods. As the last scraps were finished Serali sat back with a replete sigh.
The dishes were cleared away and the family moved to the sitting room at the front of the house for the best part of the day, the present giving. With giggles and whispers, her two sisters dashed upstairs, followed by the whole rest of the family. Serali sat in a chair in the room and waited for them to return. When everyone was gathered, the gift giving began, starting with the youngest and going to the oldest.
First little Carita, who was only four, stepped forward, hands behind her back. She was giggling helplessly as she pulled out a small object. Serali took it from her and examined it. It was a water-smoothed rock, deep red with black streaks. Just large enough to fit in the palm on her hand, it had a small hollow on one side.
"Thank you, Carita," she said, not certain exactly what to do with the rock.
"It's a luck stone," Carita volunteered in a piping voice. "You rub it when you're sad and it makes you feel happy."
Serali ran her thumb over the cool smoothness of it and smiled. "Thank you Carita." She slipped the rock into her pocket.
Next came Terla. She was six and had recently begun a project that involved much consultation with Mama and much secrecy. Serali had managed to catch a glimpse of the work though and she had a good idea of what her gift would be. Sure enough, she was presented with a small cloth bracelet, stitched somewhat clumsily with a dragon in yellow thread.
"To match your other one," explained Terla.
Serali glanced at the glittering golden bracelet that encircled her wrist. She seldom paid it any attention since it had been there her entire life. Her parents had told her how her birth father had put it on her wrist just minuets after she was born. To compare that exquisite work with this little bit of cloth was laughable, but Terla had put her all into that little scrap so Serali smiled and asked Terla to help her put it on.
Her brothers were next. Ohlito swaggered up and pulled a paper packet from his pocket. The swagger was instantly explained by its contents. Rock sweet!
"Where did you get the money for rock sweet, you rascal?" asked Serali, delighted.
"Hauled wood for Breck for a week and got enough for two," he grinned and pulled out a second pouch. Swaggering even more, he proceeded to dispense small portions to everyone else, saving the lion's share for himself.
Serali laughed at his antics and was still chuckling a bit when Dentol approached her. He had his hand in his pocket and when he pulled it out and opened it, Serali could see a small, coppery object laying on his palm. "Oh my. . ." she gasped involuntarily. "Dentol, I can't!"
"Oh yes you can, sis, because I just got a new one from Breck last week." He grinned then. "Ohlito is not the only one who had been hauling wood."
Dentol had a fascination with knives. He had been continually getting into trouble with them as a very young child and finally Falio gave up on keeping him away from sharp edges and decided to teach him how to use them safely. Since then, he had acquired a growing collection, receiving at least one every name-day and earning others from various people over the years. One that he had gotten several years ago lay now in his hand. It was a folding knife, with a copper handle worked in a pattern of hawks in flight. Serali had admired it openly when she had first seen it and apparently Dentol had remembered.
"It's not really that good of a blade," he explained. "Can't ever hold a point so if you use it much you'll have to sharpen it all the time, but it's good and sharp right now, and I figure you won't use it much."
"Thank you, Dentol, this is wonderful." She took the knife from him and put it in her pocket where it clicked against Carita's rock.
Lastly there was the present from her parents. With smile on their faces, they produced a leather covered object of unusual shape. Serali gasped in surprise. A lute case! She took the case form them eagerly and opened it. Inside was nestled a small, simple lute. Picking it up with trembling fingers, she cradled it gently. Placing her fingers with the utmost care, she strummed a chord. It needed tuning, but the tone was lovely, sweet and pure. With care she adjusted the strings, turning the pegs by minuscule increments until the notes rang true. She had a fascination with music possibly even greater than her brother's fascination with sharp objects. Ever since a strolling minstrel had come through town last year she had longed for a lute like his, but there was only one such instrument in town and the owner, a sweet old lady, would not part with it. Serali had managed to coax a few lessons out of her, but these only increased her longing.
"How in the world did you get it?" she asked.
Her mother smiled, "When Getrel went to the capital last month we asked him to get it for us. We knew we would have no peace from you till you had one."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" And with that, the celebration was over, and Serali dashed upstairs to try out the instrument.
After an hour or so of plucking strings, Serali put the lute away, her fingers sore, but her face smiling. Going back downstairs, she found the house empty, her family all at work or play elsewhere. She decided to finish this fine day by going to see Breck. After an uneventful trip through the warm, dusty streets of town, she reached Breck's forge. The big man was hard at work, hammering on a plow share for one of the farmers.
Serali came into the building and sat down in her usual corner. Breck continued hammering without acknowledging her entrance. She waited patiently while he finished with the plough. After it was done, he looked over at her with a grin.
"Are you enjoying yourself, child?"
"Yes," she said though her enthusiasm had been a bit tempered by memory. Patren had called her "child" too.
"Well, I should do my part to help you enjoy your day," he said with a smile.
Serali looked at him quizzically, wondering what he had in mind.
"Wait here a moment," he said. "I have something to show you." He walked through the door that connected the forge to the rest of his house. Serali waited, her excitement and curiosity building up her impatience to an almost intolerable level. Just when she thought that if she had to wait a moment more she would burst, Breck came back through he door, holding a small object that was almost lost in his huge hand. He handed it to her wordlessly. She took it form his hand and examined it. It was a tiny wooden box, carved all over in a pattern of trees and mountains. It had a hinged lid and when she opened it, there was a pendent, perhaps an inch in diameter, made of tin and bronze and iron. The pendant was in the form of an iron circle, divided in half by a curving "s" that was also made of iron. The two, tadpole-shaped halves thus created each held a delicately molded form, one side in reddish copper, the other in silvery tin. Curled together in exact mirror images of each other, a pair of dragons nested, one in each half of the pendant. Serali was stunned. The pendant was, with the exception of her bracelet, the most beautiful thing she had ever even seen, much less dreamed of owning.
"Did you make this?" She queried Breck, surprise showing plainly in her voice.
"Aye, that I did, child. I wasn't always a village blacksmith, you know, and I still remember a few of my old skills form my city days. I've been wanting to do a little fine work, to keep my hand in, and when the idea for this design came to me, I knew who I should gift it to."
"What is it?" she asked.
"It's a Korental luck-charm, or at least that's what it was designed after." he explained. "Folk form Korent think dragon are lucky. I made this little charm after the traditional pattern, only I used the mountain dragons we sometimes see around this country for the models, instead of the snake-dragons that you're likely to find around Korent." He began to get carried away in talking about his work, like he always did when she asked him about it, but she didn't mind. "See this one," he said, pointing at the silver dragon, "is a male mountain dragon, you can tell by the horns and the spikes all over his head, and this one here, that's the female. The two sides stand for all opposing forces. . ." He continued the explanation, but Serali didn't hear the rest of it.
So, that's why I didn't look like the dragons in the stories, she was thinking. It's because they were all boys. What a simple explanation. She looked at the pendant, examining the copper dragon in detail. Yes, there was the same fin-like crest, the same smooth belly, all the same. How amazing! I really did turn into a dragon. A mountain dragon, he said. I need to learn everything that I can about mountain dragons. Her musing was brought to a halt when she realized that Breck had finished his explanation and was looking at her with an amused expression on his face."You haven't heard a word of what I just said, have you?"
"Sorry," she blushed, "I was thinking about something."
"Well, I'll leave you to it then. I need to get back to work on this thing." He gestured toward the plow on the forge. "Otherwise I'll never get it done." But Serali was already back in her own world, thinking.
A great many things have happened today. I've become a year older. I've met a real villain, like in stories, and killed him. I have been given so many amazing gifts, and the gift of flight is the best of them. But I don't know what it really means. I can become a dragon, but I feel like the same person I always have been. How can so much change around me, how can things be so different without making me into a different person? And what am I anyway? I felt so whole, so complete as a dragon, does that mean I am really a dragon accidentally born human? But how can you accidentally be born in another shape? I am human, my parents are human, how can I be a dragon when I feel so ordinary?
She sighed, a huge breath that whistled out of her lungs and was lost, the only trace of it a stirring in the dust that hung suspended in the air. I guess I may never know the truth. Unless someday I find my parents, but... No. I can't live my whole life waiting for that someday. I have to live with what I have. So I guess it doesn't matter if I'm really a dragon or not, so long as I can turn into one and fly.
Serali walked out of the forge, waving a silent farewell to Breck, and headed home into the reddening twilight as the sun sank below the horizon. Her life had been ordinary, and she felt ordinary, but she also had a suspicion that things might get much more interesting in the future.