FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

*****

Chapter Forty Four

*****

When the storms faded at last, Vakaal followed his father to the front of the tunnels. Father put his hands to the stone, and took a deep breath. The rock parted before him like hide curtains being pulled apart. Harsh golden light spilled across the gathered urd'thin hiding in the subterranean world. Vakaal squinted, flattening back his gray ears. He shaded his eyes with a hand. As nice as it was to see the sun again after days in ember-lit darkness, his eyes were not prepared.

"Wait here." Father glanced back at him.

Vakaal nodded, and Father stepped out into the light. The golden radiance consumed him, leaving him little more than a gray silhouette against its blinding brilliance. Vakaal half-wondered if the storm had somehow transformed the sky, and made the sun even brighter. He'd almost forgotten just how intense midday sunlight could be as it bounced off golden sands. As his eyes adjusted, Father's shape became clearer again. The world beyond gradually came into focus, and Vakaal almost wished it hadn't. His belly tightened, and something cold gripped his heart. A shiver left his fur bristled.

Their whole oasis was ruined.

The copses of trees that provided shade and fruit were gone, with only shattered trunks stripped of bark and strangely blistered. The ground was blackened and scorched. Hunks of jagged black rock dotted the burnt sands and cracked earth. Some of the stone walls left by those who came before had toppled over and broken. Others were now buried beneath new dunes. A few dead fish littered the muddy bank around the oasis lake. Entire stands of reeds were gone, torn from their moorings and scattered to the desert. The winds shifted, and the air that blew into the shelter smelled terrible, acrid and scorched as if the air itself had burned.

Father wandered around the remains of their village. He put a hand upon the cracked trunk of a toppled tree. He crouched and lifted a black stones that was not there before. He peered at it, snarled and tossed it aside. He dug his fingers into the blackened soil, dug down through it. Whatever he found deeper made him smile again. The older urd'thin rose and walked to the water's edge. He knelt in the mud, and put a hand in the water. It rippled around his gray-furred fingers. With his other hand, he touched one of his shaper emblems. After a few moments, he stood again and turned to face the rest of the tribe.

"Alright, you can come out. Just be cautious." Father folded his arms, turning a slow circle to gaze around. "Could have been a lot worse, actually."

"Worse?" Vakaal swiveled his ears in disbelief, his tail twitching as he stepped out onto the blackened sands. They felt coarser than usual beneath his pads. The scent of burned air was stronger out there. "The whole oasis is gone!"

"No, it isn't." Father inclined his head towards the lake. "The water's still there. That's what is most important. It hasn't been too befouled. Not enough to kill most of what lives in it, anyway. I can clean up the rest. We can help regrow the trees. We still have birds and fruit left to eat." Father smiled as the rest of the tribe began to filter out behind Vakaal. "We brought our belongings in, we have enough supplies to rebuild our homes quickly. We'll be fine."

Vakaal padded over to his father, stepping over fractured stone and splintered tree limbs. He scrunched his muzzle, trying to fight off the acrid smell. "Are...are we...supposed to heal the trees? The water? Is...is that how..." Vakaal trailed off, uncertain he should even broach the subject with the others in earshot. What if they weren't meant to stay here?

"We've done it before, in times of great need." Father unfolded his arms and ruffled Vakaal's fur between his budding horns. "The other option would be to go and find ourselves a new oasis, large enough to support us. It would be a difficult trek, though, without the rains to follow. The water here is still enough to support us so...I think this is where we should stay." He tilted his head, his big gray furred ears perked, dark eyes shining. "Do you disagree, Vakaal?"

"You...you're asking me?" Vakaal gulped, his eyes widening. He rubbed his hands together, roughing up his fur then smoothing it back down. "I...I dunno..."

"You'll be the prime shaper someday. If you ever want to lead a tribe, these are the sort of decisions you have to make." Father smiled at him as if blissfully unaware of the sudden turmoil in Vakaal's heart. "What do you think? I don't think we'll be offending the gods if we use our powers to rebuild our home, but if you think otherwise, I'll listen."

Vakaal swallowed again. He turned around, gazing across the area. They'd lived here longer than any other oasis he could remember. He'd spent years climbing the rounded stones, exploring their half-buried hollow interiors. Learning how to scale the trees to cut down the hand fruit, how to weave netting from fibrous weeds to snare birds and fish. There was enough water here for more urd'thin than he could count, especially now that Father was shaping irrigation channels between the other ponds. When the rains came, every pond would collect more water than ever before.

"We should stay."

"Stay it is." Father squeezed his shoulder, and a swell of pride puffed out Vakaal's chest, and fluffed up his tail. "Now. The water is most important. So come help me take the poison out of it."

"Poison?" Vakaal clicked his teeth, whining. Maybe he'd already made the wrong decision.

"Just a little." Father turned away, his tail bumped Vakaal. "Nothing we can't handle. C'mon, pup. Help me cleanse the water. I'll talk you through it." He glanced over his shoulder with a smile on his muzzle. "You won't even have to worry about falling in this time."

"Very funny." Vakaal snarled. The playful anger was a good way for him to forget the worst of his fears. He glanced around, watching some of the other tribe members work to clear debris, or discuss the strange, jagged black stones left behind in the storm's wake. After a few moments, he followed his father. Blackened sands soon gave way to wet, warm mud beneath his pads. "What do I have to do?"

Father knelt in the mud at the water's edge, mud caking his gray fur and hide breeches. "Kneel alongside me. Look at the water, and tell me what you see."

Vakaal eased to his knees next to his father. The oasis lake's water lapped at the muddy shoreline, stripped of its usual protective reeds. The water had a strange tint to it, a darkness where it was usually clearer, tinted blue. It didn't look like silt or sediment, either. Instead it looked as if the water itself had changed, polluted with dark ashes until it turned nearly black.

"It looks different." Vakaal licked his muzzle. The discolored water left his blood cold.

"What else?"

Vakaal flattened his ears, looking around. Further down the shore, a fish floundered in the shallows. Gray-gold scales glittered across its back, exposed to the air. It mouthed at the surface as if the water would no longer support it. "The fish can't breathe."

"Right. So far, the water is worst in the shallows, where it was most easily affected by the storm. But the poison could spread deeper, affect the rest of the oasis, kill off anything that can't adapt." Father trailed his fingers through the water. It swirled clean behind them. "That's why I need your help to fix it."

Vakaal gave his father an odd look, one ear pinned back, his ears narrowed. "Like we adapted?"

"Correct. The gods gave us our gifts so that-"

"I thought we weren't supposed to help things that couldn't adapt." Vakaal rocked back against his heels, his tail flicking back and forth. "Didn't you say the gods would-"

"If we're going to stay here, we have to keep our home in good shape. We rely on this water, and the creatures that live within it. Sometimes you have to do things you're not sure about to support a difficult decision."

Vakaal folded his arms. "Is this about the tribe, or teaching me some kind of lesson?"

Father only laughed. "It's good of you to question things, Vakaal. When I was your age I never stopped questioning. But sometimes, you just have to believe in something." Father gestured to the sky. "I do_believe that the gods gave us these gifts, and I _do believe they would punish us for abusing them." He lowered his hand, and swept it across the water. It rippled, clear swirls pushing back the darkness. "But I also believe they want us to tend what's left of this world, to help its creatures survive a little longer. Not to change it, not to fix what those who came before did, but to give its life more time to adapt. If we don't help other life survive after the storms, what will we eat? If we do not cleanse the water, what will we drink?"

Vakaal's eyes slowly widened, his ears perked. A tingle ran down his spine, left every fur along it bristling. "You've done this before!"

"After every storm. Desperate times, Vakaal. I do what I must to keep us alive." He smiled, and shrugged, then put an arm around Vakaal and led him further from the tribe's earshot. "The gods have not punished me yet. I believe the gods made you and me strong so that our people would have a future. Yes, the tunnels we hide in are evidence of the gods' punishment to those who abused their power. But I believe the gods want you and I to ensure our people's survival. To ensure that through us, others will one day thrive in this difficult world." He gazed across the lake, smiling. "It's just my belief, anyway."

Vakaal stared at his father, eyes wide, his ears flattened and trembling. Something clicked in Vakaal's head. For the first time, Vakaal thought he truly understood. They weren't just following the rain, Father was spreading it. He wasn't just shaping to irrigate their oasis, he was dispersing water across the desert.

They weren't fleeing the wastelands at all. They were erasing them.

"You're...trying to bring the world back to life."

Father tilted his head, ears slightly up in bemusement. "Whatever gave you that idea, Vakaal?"

Vakaal licked his nose, his ears perking up to match his father's. "The others don't know, do they? I won't tell. But...you fake it, don't you." Vakaal crouched down and dug his fingers into the soft mud, his tail hanging limp against the wet ground. "The difficulty when you shape the earth. It's not hard for you at all, is it?" He smiled up at his father. Father was clever, but perhaps not as clever as he thought. "You just don't want the others to ask too much of you. To ask you to do things that would make the gods angry."

Father reached out with a single finger, and pressed a blob of mud onto Vakaal's nose. "Quite the imagination you have, my love."

"Hey!" Vakaal squeaked and wiped his nose with his own hands, only to realize he was just smearing more mud into his fur. "ACK!"

Father laughed again, shaking his head. He lifted a hand, waggled muddy fingers, and then wiped them off on his own snout, leaving gray-brown lines in his fur. "There, now we're even. You gonna help me clean this water or not?"

"Yeah, yeah." Giggling, Vakaal tried to clear the mud from his muzzle with the back of his hand, but all he managed to do was spread it. He huffed and set his hands down. "So how do I do it?"

"It's the same as before." Father shifted onto his hands and knees, with his hands in the water. "The gods started our stories the day we were born, and from there, they put those stories in our hands. They made us the story tellers. And if we're the story tellers, then all we ever have to do is change the story."

Vakaal scrunched his muzzle. He mimicked his father's position, with his hands submerged in warm, dark water. "The last time I tried that I almost drowned in clay."

Father laughed, glancing over at him. "Just be careful this time. It's like the other day, when I was spinning tales, and you took over. You became the teller of a story we already knew, and you changed it. Now, change our story. The storm poisoned the water, didn't it?"

Vakaal nodded, tilting his head. "Yes."

The urd'thin chief laughed, the runes woven into his fur jostled. "Well, if that's your attitude it's going to stay poisoned."

"What?" Vakaal flicked his tail, shifting on his knees.

The older urd'thin lifted a hand and swirled a single finger in the water. "Is this water poisoned?"

Vakaal furrowed his brow, his ears back. "...No?"

"You don't sound certain." Father glanced at the water, scrunching his muzzle. "Looks poisoned to me. Maybe I should drink some, to be sure."

"That isn't funny."

Father scooped up a handful of water, sniffing at it. "Doesn't smell right, but I guess there's only one way to be sure." He lifted his handful of water to his muzzle.

"Don't!" Vakaal reached out to him and slapped his hand away. "It's poisonous!"

Father gave Vakaal a hard look. "Then change it."

"I don't think I can right now."

"You always can, Vakaal. Everything is a story to you. All you ever have to do is change it." Father gave him a smile, then lowered his muzzle to the edge of the lake. "Now tell yourself our story. I'm thirsty, and I don't want a belly full of poison."

Vakaal swallowed hard, staring at the water. Out of the edge of his vision, he saw father putting his muzzle to the surface. Gods, was he crazy? Vakaal's whole body trembled. What if he couldn't do it? What if Father got sick? Who would lead the tribe? Vakaal clenched his jaw, grinding his sharp teeth. No, he told himself, all he had to do was tell their story.

"The storms came..." Vakaal muttered to himself, his body tensing. "They scoured the land. They burned the earth. They broke the trees. But the water..." He glanced at Father, saw the older urd'thin drinking some of the water. "The water was pure. Father did not drink poison. The storms could not change the water! The water was pure. The water was pure!"

The waters parted around Vakaal's hands. They rolled away from him in rising waves, exposing muddy lake bottom, flopping fish, and left Father's muzzle pressed to mud. Father jerked his head up just before the waves sloshed back in the other direction, splashing over Vakaal. The water that washed across him was clean, and clear. Higher waves rolled across the entire pond. They grew higher and higher, clean and clear as if each wave was stripping away the poison. Water rose on the far banks, flooding the muddied land. It splashed around the feet of those who'd gone to investigate further from the village. The lake swirled and churned, lashed at its banks in frothy tirade, and at last receded. When it calmed, the waters were once more clean and pure.

"There." Father smiled at him. "See Vakaal? You can-"

"That wasn't funny!" Vakaal staggered to his feet, shouting, his heart thudding in his slender, gray-furred chest. "You could have poisoned yourself!"

"And you could have healed me." Father's voice was so soft and patient it was almost irritating. "Sometimes we just need a little push Vakaal. I'm sorry to frighten you, but look what you did. You cleansed the whole lake, all by yourself." Father turned away, gesturing towards the water. "You see, you-AAAACCK!"

Father yelped when Vakaal ran up behind him and shoved him into the water. The older urd'thin flailed as he pitched forward and belly flopped into the lake. He splashed about and came back up, spitting water. With his fur slicked down to his body, father looked a little less imposing than usual. He coughed, wiping his eyes.

"How's that for a little push?" Vakaal giggled, clapping his paws. "Now we're even!"

"I needed a bath anyway." Father laughed when he finished coughing, then surged forward, snatched Vakaal's arm and dragged him into the water. "C'mere, you cackling brat!"

Vakaal yelped and thrashed, laughing. He tried to wriggle free of his father's grasp, but Father got his arms beneath the pup. Father hoisted him into the air, and tossed him into the deeper waters. Vakaal plunged beneath the surface, only to pop up a moment later, treading water. "You're right Father, you did need a bath! You smelled terrible!"

Father made a show of smelling his fur, grinning. "Maybe so." He dunked himself, rubbing his hands against his muzzle after he came back up. "Tell you what, you get cleaned up, swim around, and enjoy being back out under the sun. Later, you can help me rebuild our home, and coax some life back into the trees."

Vakaal took a breath, floating on his back. He stared up at the sky. It was bright blue, with no sign of clouds, no evidence of the storm that sought to unravel their world. "How do you know how much is too much?"

"How much what?"

"Change." Vakaal paddled his feet against the water, pushing himself across the pond. "In the story. You say we shouldn't stop someone's story from ending but it's not wrong to change the pond, so we still have water?"

"It's always a judgement, my love." Father took a breath and gave a slow sigh. "We just can't go too far, that's all. Sometimes stories are just meant to end. There are moments when...when we just have to know it's time to let go. And there are times, like this, when it's alright to give our lives a little push back in the right direction. You cleansed the water, so all our stories can go on a little longer. I think that's what the gods want."

"But what if..." Vakaal closed his eyes, held his breath. For a few long moments, he simply floated. He tried to picture his mother, but all he had were descriptions, and his imagination. Sometimes an image of her flitted through his mind, it seemed so clear, so accurate, it almost made him miss her. "What if we don't let go when we're meant too?"

"Then that is when the gods will punish us."

Vakaal opened his eyes. "What if they don't? What if they don't want us to let go after all?"

Father went still. "I wish I could tell you, pup, but I don't know. All I ever do is...make what I think is the right choice in the moment." He glanced down at the water, his ears drooping. "Sometimes I'm wrong. And someday, you'll have to answer those questions yourself, in your own way. Maybe you'll find better answers than I have."

As his father sloshed back ashore, Vakaal stared at him, wondering. Was it possible? If it was really all a story he was telling...

Vakaal lifted his hand from the water, and held it towards his father's back. "Mother..." Water dripped from his fingers. "Is..." Time slowed. Water droplets crystallized in air. "Still..." Water rippled around him. The world itself began to bend, like light viewed through a prism. A deep and abiding rumble echoed in the distance. "Al-"

Father whirled around, throwing both hands out to his son. "Stop!" His father's voice was a towering drumbeat that froze the world. The sound cut a deep furrow in the water and rocked Vakaal against the surface. His thought was lost, his power quelled. Time returned, and no one seemed to notice. Father slowly lowered his hands. "Vakaal, remember. Stories end for a reason. We shelter in fallen towers because our predecessors abused their powers. Sometimes we must let go, no matter how badly it hurts. Loss is part of life, Vakaal, you must understand that. You have to know that there are some chasms we are not meant to leap, even if we can."

Vakaal closed his eyes again, a strange, unfamiliar anguish squeezing his heart, tight and cold. "But...can we?" He gulped, tilting his head. "Leap the chasm?"

Father took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. "There are some questions I'd rather not have answered."

That was answer enough for Vakaal.

*****

When Mother stirred, the hatchling awoke from dreams of storms and marshes and resplendent green dragons. He blinked bleary bronze eyes, lost in reverie for a moment. Had he dreamt of his father? Maybe his dreams had a better memory than he did. Mother's loving tongue distracted him when she lapped at him, coaxing a happy purr from the little dragon.

"Morning, love."

"Morning, momma!" He tipped his head back to return her licks, nuzzling her chin. Then he slipped free of her warmth, shook himself, and flopped onto his haunches when his belly rumbled. "I'm hungry."

"Aren't you always? I'll get you some food from our bag."

Mother yawned, her pink tongue curling in her green muzzle. She stretched her slender forelimbs out, splaying her paws with her claws unsheathed. The hatchling watched her, and then did the same. Her yawn proved contagious, splitting his own tiny muzzle. He pushed his forepaws out and tried to splay them in the same way, his little black claws unveiled. When their stretches ended, Mother rummaged around in their bag. He trotted off to find an empty corner to pee, and when he returned Mother had already fetched a screech bird from the bag, along with a pot of water.

Mother opened the water jar and set it in front of him, then plucked the feathers from the screech bird. The hatchling lowered his muzzle and gulped down some of the water. He made sure to leave plenty for Mother. She was bigger so surely she needed to drink more to quench her thirst. When she offered him the plucked bird, he pointed to the water. She cocked her head, gave him a funny smile, and then retrieved the jar to drink what was left. While his mother drank, he ate enough bird to ease his hunger, and then stepped away from the carcass.

"I'm going on patrol!"

"You hardly need to patrol this place. I can glance around and see it all." Mother eased up, her head brushing the stone slab above them. She thumped her tail and pointed to the screech bird. "You've eaten less than half your breakfast. Get back here and finish it."

"I'm full, momma! You should have the rest. Don't want it to go to waste!"

The little dragon didn't dare look back. He knew Mother was glaring at him. But he also knew he was too clever for her, she wouldn't waste food. She'd said as much to him time and again. It only seemed fair he got to use the same trick on her now to make sure she ate some food too. Maybe if she ate more, she wouldn't get any skinnier.

The hatchling walked to the edge of their temporary home, where black water lapped at mud. Somewhere beyond the churning gray clouds, dawn had broken. Cold gray light filtered down through the towering trees and their jagged-leafed canopies. He stared out across the swamp. It was strange to see the same black water, the same immense trees, half of them dead, and yet see no familiar landmarks. It was somehow exactly like home and nothing like it at all.

He padded back and forth across the waterline a few times, then turned around and went back beneath the stone slab that sheltered them. Mother hadn't eaten the bird he'd left her. Without looking up at her, he gave his happiest chirp. "Eat your bird, momma, it's good for you!"

Mother made a noise that sounded halfway between a laugh and a sob. He walked through their little cave, nearly filled by her, and made a show of inspecting the place where the stone met the mud. A few shiny red beetles crawled around there, along with a black wriggle-worm, its tiny claws flicking as it scuttled across the lichen covered stone. He glanced over his wings, saw that mother was eating, and smiled.

Where the stone met water, he changed course, and followed the muddy shoreline towards the tree the slab rested against. Tiny creatures flitted about in the shallow part of the dark water. They looked like little blue coils that floated with the water's motion, then suddenly uncoiled themselves and shot away. He'd never seen those before. He waggled his haunches, flexed his forepaws, wondering if he could snatch a few of them to show them to Momma. But he wasn't allowed to touch the waters, they were poisonous. Still...they didn't bubble as much here as they did back home. Maybe he could...

"You stay out of that water." Mother's voice was as sharp as the edges of her tail webbing.

The hatchling straightened up at once. "Yes, Momma!" He might argue with her about food, but that was different.

"I've eaten my food." Mother cocked her head, a hint of smile played across her muzzle and glimmered in her eyes, a darker bronze than his. "Are you happy now?"

"Uh huh!" He whirled around, his tail tip splattering against the mud. He bounced on his paws, hopping across the mud back to his mother. "Uh huh, uh huh! Don't you feel better?"

"Yes, yes, I feel better." Mother laughed as she eased the empty water pot into her pack.

"See, I told you!" Without even being asked, the youngling snapped the bag's buckles shut, then tugged the straps around Mother's foreleg. "You have to eat to feel better!"

"Yes, you're very wise." Mother rumbled in her throat, lowering her head to lick him.

The hatching arched his neck into her tongue, buckling the clasps shut. "I know!"

"And so humble." Mother snorted, then lifted her foreleg up and shook it. The bag stayed in place, and she smiled at him. "Well done, love. Are you ready to go?"

He nodded, and trotted to the edge of the water. Mother rose to her feet and followed him. With one forepaw, she plucked him up and clutched him to her chest plates. He pressed his head to her body, listening to her breathing, her heartbeat. The steady sound soothed him. Mother hobbled forward a few steps into the dark water. He hoped it didn't leave her paws all tingly. Once she had space enough, she spread her wings. The hatchling squeezed her foreleg, bracing for ascent.

Mother leapt out of the swamp, beads of black water trailing behind her. She beat her wings, and the young dragon's belly lurched into his hind paws. It made him feel sort of tickly and sick and excited all at once. He squirmed and giggled and scrunched his muzzle for the first few moments of their climb. Mother dipped a wing, and turned in the air, then straightened and pumped her wings again, heading for an opening in the canopy.

Soon the tree tops stretched out beneath them, a vast patchwork of green and gray against the dark water. Spots of color dappled the canopy. Bursts of bright blue flowers lined a few trees. Crimson screech birds perched in the boughs of another. Yellow fronds waved back and forth from atop an immense and slow moving tree-turtle. Clusters of orange sting-bugs buzzed around swollen nests. All of it shrank beneath him until it was just a sprawl of mingling colors and black water.

When they neared the clouds, Mother bid him to close his eyes and hold his breath again. The clouds made him feel tingly all over, especially his wings and his nose. When brightness shone through even his eyelids, he knew they'd pierced through the cloud layer. He cracked his eyes open against the harsh but beautiful sunlight. Hints of bitter scents clung to his nostrils, remnants of whatever foul substance clouds were made of.

Still squinting, he gazed up at the sky. The sun was bright and beautiful. The sky was rich and blue, infinite and wondrous. How Mother could think they seemed pale and sickly, he'd never know. If it was true, then he could scarcely even imagine how it must have looked to her when she was his age. He feared if the sun grew any brighter it would burn them away to ashes to fall into the clouds.

As the day passed, the hatchling spent most of it staring at the sky. He'd rarely wondered what lay beyond the clouds before, but now that he knew, he wondered what lay beyond the sky. Or was it like blue stone they could not penetrate? Even if it was, surely there was something past it. But it seemed so high, and far away. He asked mother if she'd ever reached the sky, but she only laughed.

Throughout the day, the sun moved. By the time mother was descending to find a new spot to rest, it hovered over the horizon, an orange eye casting fire across the world. His copper markings shone in glittering scarlet. The gray clouds all caught flame, glowing orange and red as the sky darkened. When they descended, he was almost afraid the flames were going to burn them. At mother's reminder, he squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath. The hatchling was glad the clouds only felt cold and tingly again, no matter how much they looked like fire.

They had no shelter that night, just a mound of mossy rocks jutting above the black mire. Mother gave him food and water, and as before he made sure she ate and drank too. After that, she was ready to sleep. Without a cavern to spend the night in, the little dragon felt oddly exposed until Mother draped her wing over him. Then he snuggled up against her warmth, and told himself stories until her soft breathing lulled him to sleep.

The next day played out the same way. He woke, made sure Mother ate and drank just like he did, and then they flew. He wondered just how far they had traveled. With the clouds almost always roiling beneath them, he could not watch the swamp pass by. Yet he knew he was further from his home now than he could ever recall. The little dragon doubted he could have run this far in all his life, even if he had all the logs and rocks he'd need to cross the swamp. Now he understood why mother was gone so long when she went to find their new home.

A new home was very far away indeed.

At night, Mother counted up the jars that still had water in them. Then she counted the remaining dead screech birds. They didn't smell or taste as good now, but Mother assured him dragons were made to eat anything they wanted, and that even old prey wouldn't make him sick. Though it didn't taste as pleasant, it did ease his hunger. To make sure she ate as well, he refused to eat his portion until she'd eaten hers. She didn't argue anymore.

The following evening, Mother found them a place with a little more shelter. A strange cave, with semicircular walls made of crumbling stone, and a flat, even ceiling. Broken stones lined the earth all around it, many covered in layers of moss. Even the floor was stone, where it wasn't covered in mud. After eating his dinner, the little dragon patrolled their temporary home. He chased off two poison salamanders and had a standoff with a noisy sting-bug till it flew away. He even caught a few tiny swamp crabs that were scuttling around in the thicker moss outside the cave. He ate a few and gave the rest to his mother.

Mother was unusually excited the next morning. After they shared breakfast, she walked around the outside of their strange cave, sniffing at things, and staring at other rounded rocks further off into the swamp. The hatchling followed her as she made a few circuits around the hilltop where the half-round cave was. He pounced at her tail, wrestled with its webbing, and clambered up her back only to slide right back down with a gleeful squeal. He wasn't sure why she was in such a good mood, but her happiness was contagious.

As the hatchling helped her buckle the pack around her foreleg, Mother hummed to herself. He rarely heard her do that, and it made him smile. He tried to hum along with her, but never seemed to have the right notes. That only made her laugh. She licked him, clutched him to her chest, and leapt into the sky. She kept humming as she ascended, pausing only to hold her breath as they pushed through the clouds.

The sun tracked across the sky, and Mother's humming became a wordless song, a repeating melody that held a haunted beauty. The hatchling tilted his head, listening to her sing, her voice almost lost to the wind. The song's melody seemed almost in conflict with itself, beautiful yet sad, as if it were unhappy about being joyful. Yet he sang along with her, and when he got the notes right, she laughed and squeezed him against her chest.

"Your father taught me that." Mother shifted her grip, cradling him safe and secure in both forelegs as she flew. "Learned it from a friend, back where the clean water is. It's not a dragon melody. The songs my parents used to sing when I was your age are different."

"Father?" The hatchling laid his head against his mother's scutes, staring up at her face. "Is father gonna be there? Where the clean water is?"

Mother laughed again, sounding as though she were happy even as something cold squeezed her heart. "I don't think so, my love. But you'll have a place to grow, and thrive. You'll grow up healthy and strong, unlike me."

"You're strong!" The hatchling tugged a paw free to swat at her scales. He didn't like it when she talked bad about herself. "Just eat more food!"

"I'll do that." She flashed him a smile, her frills raised, then gestured with her head towards the horizon. "Look ahead of us, love. Tell me what you see."

The little dragon turned his attention away from his mother to gaze into the distance. Up ahead of them, the clouds dropped away. They sank towards the swamp in a twisting, descending spiral. As they drew nearer, the hatchling could not look away. He'd never seen clouds move like that before. They all rotated around a fixed point in the center of a slow-moving vortex. It looked like the little whirlpools he sometimes saw in the mire, only so much larger, as if all the clouds that covered the swamp were ever-turning upon this single point.

"They're all twisty!"

He wasn't sure why that brought a rumble of amusement from his mother. He was just telling her what he saw. "Yes, dear, they're all twisty. That's where we are going, to the center of the spiral."

Mother swooped over the top of the clouds, and they eddied beneath her wings. The maelstrom fell away beneath them, an ashen slope churning lower and lower, towards the water. An immense spire of weathered gray stone stood at the very center of the swirling clouds. Tendrils of mist twisted across the dark water and twined around the stone monolith, only to dissipate or be drawn back up into the other side of the vortex where it rose once more.

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere very old, I think, where ancient forces still hold sway." Mother glided for a few breaths, descending. "Somewhere that I hope will take us to our new home. Stick close to me here, and keep your paws to yourself, alright? Don't go playing with everything you see."

But he liked playing with everything he saw. Usually when Mother said something like that, it meant there was going to be something fun to play with. He didn't know why she didn't want him to have fun, but he'd do his best to behave. He curled his tail around Mother's wrist, gazing at the swamp below when the clouds thinned.

There were more rocks here jutting from the water than he was used too. Lichen and moss covered them all, but could not obscure their angular shapes. If not for all the water around them, they would have been fun to climb up and play upon. Flatter stones rested just above the water's surface. There were fewer trees than he was used to seeing. The water looked different than back home, not near as black or sludgy. It did not burble the same way as the mire he was used to. Perhaps it was just because the hole in the clouds allowed the sun to shine directly on this part of the swamp, unlike everywhere else.

The little dragon wondered if there was a hole in the sky, too. He twisted around, trying to peer past Mother's green scales. She held him tight, and he couldn't glimpse anything but blue beyond her.

"Don't squirm, we're landing soon." Mother murmured, rubbing him gently with her thumb while she held him safe. "Tonight, you'll get to see the stars. They're beautiful."

He gasped, his little frills shooting up. "The stars are real?"

Mother curled her neck to smile at him, her bronze-copper eyes shining and bright. "Yes, love, the stars are real. Tonight you can see them. Now, let me focus on my landing."

Even though he knew he needed to stay still, the young dragon couldn't help but wriggle. He was too excited to sit still. He wanted to see the stars! With a happy whine, he looked up at the sky past his mother's vast, outstretched wings. The sunlight made the green membranes half translucent. Veins pulsed with life. But beyond them, he could not see the stars, only the pale blue sprawl of the enclosing sky, and the bowl-shaped rise of the inverted clouds surrounding them.

"Where's the stars?"

"They're only out at night." Mother sounded as if she was fighting a giggle. "Now quit your squirming."

The hatchling gave a weary sigh. He never got to squirm when he wanted to. He flopped his head against his mother, but his dramatics did not last long when he caught a glimpse of the stone spire Mother descended towards. It was the largest rock he'd ever seen. It jutted from the water, towering over even the stone slabs that once protected their home. Mother could not come close to touching the top of it even standing on her hind legs. It was rounded, a bit like the shape of a thick tree trunk, only far bigger. Coils of wispy gray poison mist twined around it, slithering like thorn-vines.

"It's a big stone tree!" He giggled, twisting around for a better view. "I wanna climb it!"

"It's not a tree." Mother flashed him a smile, even as he disobeyed her order not to wriggle. "I think the word is...trrroo-were. Toe-hhhour?"

The hatchling scrunched his muzzle, flattening his spines back. "That sounds funny."

"It's not our language. It's a human word, like from some of the stories. It means tall place of stone. It was built this way." She snapped her teeth. "Tow-wer! That's how he said it, I'm sure."

The hatchling blinked. "So humans made the tow-wer?"

Mother dipped a wing, circling the large cylinder of stone. "Probably." She made a worried murmuring sound. "But likely not by themselves."

The hatchling twisted in mother's grasp again to watch the tower as she circled it a few times. The air swirling beneath her wings blew apart the tendrils of cloud, but more crept in to take their place. Yellowy-brown lichen crusted much of the stone, darker and slimier near the water. A few vines crawled up the walls, clinging to dirt-filled crevices. In some places, the curved walls had long since collapsed and fallen into the swamp. Crumbled rock sat beneath it in submerged piles. One entire section of broken wall jutted halfway up out of the water, leaning against another section of tower.

"Hold tight to me!" Mother pivoted in the sky, turning towards the battered monolith.

The hatchling wasn't about to argue. He clung to his mother as she swept towards the tower, angling for one of the larger holes in the half-crumbled outer wall. The hatchling squeaked, squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face against mother's foreleg scutes. The motions of her body changed and she shifted him to a single foreleg, clutched against her chest plates.

Curious, he opened his eyes again. She worked her wings in a strange, backwards looking motion, slowing her approach and bringing her body upright. With her free foreleg, she grabbed at the stone, and planted a hind paw against it, further down. Then she stretched her limb out and set him down on the rocks through another hole. She shifted her grip, and offered him the foreleg with the pack around it.

"Take this off, please." The hatchling did so, and Mother patted his head. "Thank you. Now stay there!" Mother curled her neck to glare at him long enough for him to know she meant it.

Then she jumped away from the wall back into the air. She beat her impressive wings a few times, twisting her body around as if dancing in the sky. He flared his own wings and looked back at them, wondering if he'd ever be able to fly as good as her. If there were other dragons around, he could only imagine his mother would have been able to outfly them all. He folded his own wings against his back, and watched Mother wheel about in the sky.

Mother swooped back down towards the swamp, pumping her wings. Drifting shrouds of mist swirled beneath her, ripples ran across the water. She stretched out her hind legs and landed on the big, flat chunk of half submerged stone. She sloshed through the dark water and fingers of cloud, climbing up the old wall towards a larger opening beneath his vantage. She wriggled herself through and vanished inside.

Soon the hatchling heard splashes and thumps echoing from below. He turned around and gazed about. The tower's interior was divided up by more stone walls. Some of them were completely intact, others were crumbling or full of holes. He wondered why whoever made this place had divided it up into lots of smaller caves instead of just one big cave. He followed the sounds through a very large opening of arched stone, into another cave with odd shapes made from rotting wood. There was a tall rectangle with wooden slats that had caved in. A few moldering objects lay on the floor around it. They looked a bit like the book mother brought him, only damp and moldy. A wooden box filled with square shaped holes sat in another corner. Birds chirped at him from a nest hidden within one of the openings.

Through another large arched hole in the stone, he came across a strange tunnel. Instead of a slope, the tunnel was made up of big stone blocks that descended below the floor. Another set of stone blocks lead up through the ceiling. More splashing emanated from the wide hole that the worn stone blocks led to. They followed the curve of the outside wall. Just as he was thinking about hopping down to see where the hole went, he heard a thump, followed by a word mother would have yelled at him for using.

The little dragon giggled when his mother cursed. "Momma, you said a bad word!"

"I banged my head." Mother's voice echoed up to him, though it was too dark for him to see into the lower floor. Not as much sunlight penetrated down there. "I'll be up in a moment. Don't wander off. And don't climb the stairs, either!"

Stairs? He tilted his head, then hopped about in excitement. So that's what stairs looked like. He'd heard of them in the stories, but he'd never actually seen them. Come to think of it, he'd never seen a human place until this one. He knew some of the stories he'd heard came from humans, originally, before mother put her own spin on them. But humans were almost just a story themselves. He'd never seen a place they made, and he'd certainly never met any.

The breeze outside shifted, blowing through the tower's damaged walls. As the air drifted down the stairs from the upper region, a strange scent tickled his nostrils. He turned to face the wind, sniffing a few times. Smelled like something's carcass. He tilted his head, sniffing again. He couldn't tell what kind of animal had died. Maybe something else had been using this big human cave tower as its nesting ground.

"Momma, something smells dead!"

"What?"

The hatchling pinned his ears. If he repeated himself, she wouldn't let him investigate. But if she wasn't there to stop him, she couldn't get mad, right? He was pretty sure that was how it worked. He clambered up the stairs one at a time. The space cut through the stone seemed huge for him, but would be a tight fit for his mother. The strange climbing motions left his little legs burning by the time he'd reached the next floor.

When the hatchling gazed around the room he'd discovered, his heart nearly stopped. Something dead lay crumpled in the far corner, and he knew at once it was a human. Though much of the creature's body lay beneath some sort of cloth covering, it fit the descriptions he'd heard of them. Four limbs, no wings, and what was left of a flat face. It was hard to say how long it had been dead because birds and insects had feasted on its remains. The young dragon whined, hanging his head. His heart sank. The first human he'd ever seen, and it was dead.

"Momma! I found a dead human!"

Something sharp looking lay near the human. It was pointed, flat, made of metal. Old blood stains crusted it. In the stories, the humans made weapons because they had none of their own the way dragons had claws, teeth, and fire. That must have been one of their metal weapons. He wondered whose blood was on it. Another human? Some prey? How had the human died? Maybe it died fighting-

"Get away from that!" Mother snarled as she stormed up the stairs. He whirled around. Her body barely fit, her wings scraped stone. She glared at him as she came to a stop, but then sighed, her wings drooping. "You...you shouldn't see things like that. Come with me to the top. You don't need to see them."

Mother turned away, and the hatchling caught a glimpse of the strange wound she'd returned home with one day, when she brought the pack and the book. He'd wondered what sort of creature had done it. What beast had claws that size, that shape? He glanced at the metal thing lying on the floor, stained with blood, and had his answer.

The hatchling scowled. Mother said 'them', so there must have been more than one human. Had they been living in the tow-her for years, like his mother and he had in their cave? Or were the humans wandering the swamp like the two of them were now? He wanted to explore the other rooms to find out, but he didn't want Mother to get angry with him. Maybe he'd investigate when she was asleep.

He returned to the stairs curling around the outer wall, and followed her up. Mother crossed plenty of stairs with each step, but he could only climb them one at a time. He put his fore paws up the step, then his hind paws, then his forepaws on the next little stone ledge. He glanced up at Mother. Though her wings brushed the walls, she fit through the stairwell. It was nice of whoever built the tow-her to make the stairs big enough to fit her.

The stairs led to the largest room yet. Unlike the levels below, the tower's top floor was not divided by walls. Instead, it resembled one big cave. The inner walls seemed a different kind of stone, dark and smooth. Light shone in bright beams through holes in the broken crystalline dome that occupied much of the ceiling. Shattered pieces of crystal lay upon the floor. Partway across the room stood several immense stone rings. The inner ring was made from strange black rock that looked shiny, even in darkness, yet bore no reflection. A larger ring was built all around it of silvery stones cut to odd angles, and covered in flat surfaces with strange, squiggly markings carved into them. Both rings were held at an angle, pointed towards the cracked dome above.

A stone arch constructed all the way to the ceiling sat around the strange rings. Words were carved across the arch. Symbols of books held in funny looking paws marked either side of the words. Mother stared up at it, whispered the words. She hissed and shook her head.

"What's that big circle, momma?"

Mother looked back at him, smiling. "Something wonderful, and terrible all at once. If this works, and we're lucky, it will take us to our new home."

The hatchling padded forward to sniff at it, his tail tip twitching. A strange smell emanated from the stone rings he could not quite place. "What if it doesn't?"

Mother grasped his tail and gently pulled him back from it. "We'll be together, whatever happens. Your...your father. You know he lived somewhere else for a time, right?"

"The marsh!" The hatchling hopped on his paws, giggling, the dead humans temporarily forgotten in the face of this new mystery. "With the clean water!"

"That's right." Mother smoothed down his frills with a warm paw, smiling at him. "Your father knew a lot of things, things I'd only heard from my parents. Other things I'd never imagined...and this is one of them. He...told me of...something the humans once made, in places like this. Places where the old forces hold sway. Back when they made dragons...work for them. They built something that could..." She trailed off, staring at the wall. She worked her muzzle, flicked her ears as if trying to remember the right words. "...Take you to a new home. You...you see, the place your father came from, it...it's like another world. Like ours was before all this, and..." She trailed off, staring up at the crystalline dome and its many broken holes. "He said...There are places where the worlds are closest, separated only by walls. With holes waiting to be found, and a chasm waiting to be leapt. That's how he described it, and I...I never knew what to think, until...until I found this place. It's just like he said. And there were humans here so it must still work." She tilted her head, staring at the strange rings. "It has to work."

The hatchling flopped onto his haunches. That didn't make much sense. Sometimes Mother talked crazy. "What's it do?"

"It leaps the chasm. It bridges the divide between this ruined world, and one where everything is whole again." Mother swallowed, rumbling. "It pierces the sky to send you beyond."

"That sounds scary." The hatchling flattened his ears. "What if the sky breaks and it all falls?"

Mother snorted, baring her fangs at unseen foes. "What does it matter, love? There'll be no one left here to fear the falling sky." Mother sighed, then curled her wing around him. "Come on. Let's go back downstairs. I'll show you where the drinkable water bubbles up below, and then I'll hunt you some fresh food. Tonight we watch the stars, and tomorrow...tomorrow we go home."