Son of a Dream
I think that when you put dragons in a story, the story will sooner or later become a story about dragons, regardless of initial intent. Let's see if it evolves into something with a semblance of a plot or goes down the road to rule 34. The title should make sense if i manage to make it a finished thing. I hope it gives you some measure of pleasure.
The Earth rushed towards her faster; the clouds exploded and on both sides like a tunnel and the ground revealed its patchwork of cities and farmland. She folded her body further, hitting the speed limit for Jumpers and exceeding it. The air was colder than the arctic waters that had nearly drowned her not a month away. The air, the freedom of the element, this was the grave she wanted, if there would be a choice. A memory shook her body in a spasm and brought acidic tears to her pale eyes; they had been, after two sleepless nights, surrounded by shadows darker than stormclouds. She sighed and opened up the parachute. It yanked her so hard a rib nearly gave; drops of saliva fell from her mouth as she struggled, exhaling and caughing. It was so difficult to steer in the desired direction, but with great mastery, like an illustrator holding a fragile brush, she tugged the lines and glided. The ground emraced her with the warmth of bright, toxic sand, burning like a powdered sun; the cursed in more languages than a rabid librarian on a full moon. A nearby waterfall offered a cold, pneumonia-inducing shower, the only refuge from the revolting orange sand. Vesa trembled in the cold, and recited "Ethernal Autumn" slowly, burning the cold out of her body. If it were only that simple to exorcise depression; she would be a mad doctor in no time. Vesa slowly performed the fluid motions of the Anchoring, centered herself in her own heart, and picked her wet clothes to wash them. She had no memory of taking them off, but then again, she had recited too much. Another verse from the accursed "Ethernal Autumn" set the black flight suit ablaze, drying the night dark surface. Before she put the
Oily fabric on, she looked at her naked body; the pink scars , spread wider than a lion's claws, met her gaze like living beings for a fraction of a second second, holding their own. They alway defied her; never disappearing when the proper verse for such things was recited. Now they receded under her look, as if loosing a staring competition; but they would be back before nightfall. She touched her abdomen, brushed her short black hair, massaged the icy cold back ,the knotted muscles, the joints, and especially areas of her back over the kidneys. She did that three times before warming her chests to avoid getting sick. There was no poem against the common flu; there was an essay, but it tended to give cancer to those who red it regularly. Besides, no scholar had proof that it cured the common cold; it could be that it was simply sating, being a chicken soup story.
She extended an arm, opening a little compass, and checked the direction by blowing on the needle's glowing pin, although she already knew the path instinctively. The dragonhold closest to her was to the west. She took a deep breath, and felt a pulse against her fingers, raging at the part of her mind that was cold and weak. She brushed the feeling away, and lightly, innocently, pointed at the distant rocks behind her.
They shattered with a terrific blast that left her ears ringing; a piece of stone left a bloody trace against her face which made her pause and consider; she looked at the blood long and hard, as if to scare it. Then she left a drop fall on the ground, loosing all interest. The wound closed with a gentle sound like burning woods turning to ambers. She took her scattered belongings, put them back in the pockets of the flight suit, folded her parachute calefully, as if it were a wounded lover, and packed it back in the pack that was its rightfull home. She gave it an experimental tug, pulling the line that released the parachute and when she was satisfied, begun to walk toward the Hold.
The Holds here were magnificent in general; this one was beautiful in particular. The stone pillars erected to please the dragon's instinctive nature to feel separated from the world, as if on a plateau were so tall they could pass for religious monuments; the buildings behind them were bright yellow and surrounded by red vegetation. What a perfect spot. If you were a drgon, that was. She blinked her eyes and looked at the landscape with eyes other than her own; it glew in green and violet, pulsing with potential energy. She blinked again and watched the energy that nobody knew about swirl around the alien geometry of the pillars; the dragons did not know why they needed all this. She did. Not that it mattered now; she sighed, licked her dry lips, felt an intense craving for water, just as strong as her lungs craved air; reciting the poem had drawn too much water out of her. She cursed her own recklessness and run towards a nearby trickle of water coming from a watering station. The thirst had to be quenched, or it would not be safe for the people who would probably be near her soon. The water had the faint draconic scent that was expected but it stood out in some way "They better not piss in it, or I'll curse them to get tail cancer" - she thought, knowing she would not do that. To people, yes. To dragons, no.
She drank the water through a small, cylindrical filter from her smallest pocket, and enjoyed the cleaner taste, then sat down to take a second; the world moved a little to her dizzy mind, as if she'd been running in circles. In a way, she had - she had jumper three times in a day. No one survived more than two parachute jumps under the new laws of physics, but she did not care. She was newer and crazier than those laws. But the jumping had not done it this time. It had not helped. And it always helped.
Then again, no one had tried to drown her before. If anything could make a person Beserk, poem-reciting skills or not, an attempt on their very life should top the list. So the only calming factor left were dragons - the childhood memory of a tranquil place. If that did not work...She'd have to find herself a ghost city to destroy or an old mine to collapse. That, and some boulders to brake. Hard physical labor was good for the soul.
She moved an irritated glare from the water to a nearby rock to test her mood objectively, and the stone vibrated, then shattered. She unintentionally looked at the water, but closed her eyes. It was bad to aim at the water - it boiled and blistered people with its steam. Her, mostly. But sometimes others, too. That's how the man who had tried to kill her hadbecome a vegetable. She remembered the colors of the boiled fresh, strangely like the chicken stew she had favored for luch back at the Academy. That body was a dead giveaway. Would anybody find her, she thought, focusing on the thought of theAcademy - would anybody remember her? She had erased so many memories, taking them upon herself; for a moment she could hardly even be certain any of this was really happening. Maybe the attempt on her life was also a memory from somebody else...
Unlikely. She was the only Poet alive, and no one else could kill a man with words. "We become what we pretend to be" - she thought, drawing a circle on the ground to drain the pressure from her look. She made the circle a smiling sun, with rays pointing in all directions. That somehow helped, and she regained her composure; she walked towards the Hold with a confident step.
Dragonholds were beautiful now; they weren't the contagion zones they had been before; they weren't detention camps. And it had only been a hundred years. Now they were places of cohabitation; of balance. Of friendship. Such an atmosphere could help.
The stone pillars surrounding the Hold resonated to her touch when she patted them; they sung like bees in a jar, gently stinging her mind with the aroma of distant, crushed flowers. She caughed; the scent was too powerful, nauseating.
Stepping back to reality, she withdrew her hand carefully, exhaled and walked between the pillars; the pressure of the threshold they formed parted to allow her in. Behind her, the invisible pressure closed, reforming the threshold. The atmosphere inside the resulting inperceivable bubble that surrounded the Hold was somehow stale, an unpalpable sentation, even to her, reminiscent of a room that had not been ventilated regularly.
-I'll walk in silence, like the rain - she hummed to herself, careful not to let the poem resonate.
A dragon walked behind her back, too shiny for his size, the self-esteem of a guard dog in his eyes, mixed with a good deal benevolent curiosity. He had not heard her come, or smelled her - and that always made them suspicious. She smiled a sunny, childish smile at him, and sat on the dusty unpaved ground; making herself lower than the dragon, she whistled gently; the dragon looked at her with more suspicion, then pressed his muzzle against her face, looking deep down her eyes, with his golden, vertical pupils, which changed to silver as he focused hard, still failing to see the person she was, and seeing instead somebody else. Someone the dragon felt he knew. The strong, spicey smell of the dragon filled her nostrils, making it clear he was only a year old, still an idiot and mostly male. Solitary, territorial personality; he would one day have talent for music, when he outgrew his animal stage and developed sentience.She blew air into his nostrils, startling him, and he sneezed, moisture coming to his eyes. For a second his expression was comical, as he tilted his head in disbelief, as if trying to see her from a different angle. She stuck her tongue at him, then lied down on the ground to rest her suddenly aching back. It had been a long day. And it was about to get longer.