Dragon Lessons

by Eve Paludan

  “My family herald. The dragon, and the sword, and the Jellingstenene.”

  “What’s the Jellingstenene?”

  “The jellingstone or, as you may call it, a runestone, is my family’s sacred stone, which they erected at Jelling, centuries ago. I know not if it is still there in your time. I hope you may visit it someday… with your passport, so you don’t get imprisoned.”

  I laughed at his humor and kissed the pendant. “It’s the most beautiful handfast gift a bride ever received.”

  We hugged, feeling each other’s heartbeats.

  “I don’t have a gift for you, Thorn!” I said in dismay.

  “Worry not. Your presence is my gift and your participation is my gift.”

  “And yours is my gift, too,” I added.

  I heard a bunch of people laughing as they came down the path beating on drums and pots and pans.

  “What’s that?” I asked, throwing Thorn my best eyebrow cock.

  “The handfast party is coming to get us before we get a wild hair and consummate our love before the ceremony. You and I are the only ones who believe that our love will remain chaste. I have a bawdy group of dragon relatives. Such a lusty lot, they are, I am sorry, but they will be teasing us in a ribald manner about coupling for the next few hours.”

  I laughed and laughed as his family and friends noisily swept us over to a bower next to the River Guden and tied our hands together with red ribbon. And Thorn’s father, he was the one who wound the ribbon around our wrists to tie us together, all the while saying naughty things to Thorn in their native language—things that made him blush and say, “I’m glad you can’t understand what Father is saying.”

  I said, “All the men are laughing, and I know that laugh, so please don’t translate for me.”

  And then, in my own language, Thorn’s mother ran the handfast ceremony. She said the sweetest things about me and about Thorn, and about our love. It was a beautiful ceremony and I didn’t say “I do.” We had to jump over some sheaves of wheat. And then the party started.

  I got kissed by everyone on the cheeks and then, suddenly, bagpipes and drums and fiddles and flutes were struck up and Thorn and I danced, still connected by the ribbons around one wrist. And he whirled me around the grass and I lost the leather slippers I was wearing as we danced, all holding hands with each other and dancing in circles to faster and faster music until I was dizzy, and the sun began to sink low into the sky.

  Thorn got me a cool drink of something from the shade of the kids’ table—honey, spices, and water—and I lay on the sweet grass in my blue dress, exhausted but happy as the sunset encroached on daylight.

  “I’ll be a dragon in a few minutes,” he said.

  “I’ll be awake in a few minutes,” I said.

  “I’ll always love you, Tammy Moon.”

  Chapter 28

  TAMMY MOON

  I woke up reluctantly when I heard a text message sound. I stretched a glorious stretch and picked up my phone from my nightstand, while looking up for Thorn. I read the text and put the phone down again.

  My dragon-man was at my bookshelves looking at my DVD collection and had one in his hand.

  “Hi, Thorn,” I said, smiling.

  “Greetings, sleeping beauty. Did you have a lovely dream?” he asked with a knowing smile.

  I smiled back. “It was the best dream ever. I didn’t want to wake up, except to make sure you were still here. But you got up without me realizing it.”

  “Of course, I’m here.” He paused. “I had to arise. Boundaries were being crossed. And your weight was pressing on me in a way that was, well… pressing.”

  “You’re really good at not compromising that boundary stuff, I must say,” I teased.

  “It serves me well and has, all of my life.” He grinned crookedly. “I trust that the dream was fulfilling for you, o’ lovely one.”

  I sighed in contentment and put my hand over my heart dramatically and touched… the pendant.

  “Oh, oh! My handfast gift! You let me bring it through the dream to here!”

  “Of course. I can’t have you longing for it all your life. And I want you to find my family’s herald someday, on the stone in Jelling.”

  “I promise, when I’m old enough, I’m going there to try to find it.”

  He smiled, and his eyes twinkled. “You are a good and pure girl.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t expect what we dreamed to be so satisfying, within the parameters we vowed. Or you vowed, to my mother.”

  He laughed easily.

  I said, “I love your family and friends. I’m sorry you lost them and you’re in this place and time where it seems like all you have is the Moon family.”

  “I treasure your family. And we all lose loved ones over time, but we never forget them. We keep them, here.” He touched his chest. “And here.” He touched his forehead.

  I reached for his hand and kissed the palm. “You would be a good husband. A good father, too.”

  He bowed his head modestly and then smiled at me again. “I will take those words of yours into eternity.”

  “And I’ll take yours as far as I can go in my mortal life.”

  “It has been a gift, many gifts, to be with you, Tammy.”

  I grinned that he used my name without all the formalities. “Gifts are meant to be opened, aren’t they, Thorn?”

  “Aye, just so.”

  “This gift proves that we really happened. Not just in a dream,” I said.

  “The proof of love is not a herald pendant on a chain, Tammy. The proof of love is that we are the living evidence that love has changed us. Irretrievably.”

  I cried a little bit, and he dried my tears with a kiss and with his gentle fingers.

  “I’m changed,” I said.

  “I see that.”

  I stood still, remembering all that happened in the dream, while he stroked my hair.

  A cabinet door banged in the kitchen, reminding me that we weren’t alone. “Where’s Anthony?” I asked, holding my necklace pendant like a talisman.

  “In the kitchen, quietly eating vast quantities of food from that large market we visited. I think he is just now consuming cakes with the most remarkable blueberries in them.”

  “Eating? Again?” I let go of my necklace. “And he’s eating all the blueberry muffins!”

  “That is what I would do, too. Eat the finest delicacies first.” He paused and gave me a guilty look. “I ate three of the blueberry cakes and left Anthony to devour the rest. I should have brought you one. Forgive me, I was not thinking.”

  “Men. That’s not all you do. Hang on for a sec. I gotta answer my mother’s text message.” I picked up my phone again and silently read the text from my mom. Then I voice-texted her back so Thorn could hear, too: “Okay, we’ll see you later, Mom. No worries. We are about to watch a movie on DVD and Anthony is eating muffins in the kitchen.” I sent the message off to her.

  I put my phone down. “Mom said she is hot on the trail of the Cup, but needs more time. She’ll keep you in the loop when she can tell you something definitive.”

  “I’m grateful, Lady Tam.” He paused. “I mean, Tammy.”

  I grinned. “That’s better. Now, which movie do you have in your hand?”

  “What is a movie?”

  “That box in your hand. There’s a movie in it, recorded on a disc. I’ll show you.”

  Blushing a little, he said, “I can speak your language but not read it. I do read and write in my own language.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that because you used Google Earth. I watched you. Twice.”

  “I was navigating from the maps and scenery and landmarks and rivers, not reading any words. And I moved my fingers on the glass as you did, to go closer or farther, east or west, north or south.”

  “Okay, then. Let me see what movie you picked out.”

  I smiled at the DVD with Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer on the cover. “Ladyhawke. It’s the perfect movie for us
!”

  I put it in the DVD player.

  In the interest of explaining the difference between storybook life in a movie and reality, Thorn and I were now watching Ladyhawke in my room. He kept touching the screen of the TV.

  “Why can I not touch them? Are they imprisoned in a cage of some sort? Or, is this box some sort of scrying instrument?”

  “Neither. This is a movie and it’s playing on my TV, which is not interactive in the same way that my phone responds to touch. I hope you like Ladyhawke. It’s one of my favorite love stories.”

  “I am interested in their story, but why is there a transparent shield between us and them? Be this sorcery?” he asked, tapping the glass.

  “Not sorcery. It’s technology. Electronics. Like my cell phone, it’s glass and it’s breakable, so be careful because my mom would be really mad if the TV got broken,” I warned.

  “Nothing can jump through the glass screen and attack us?”

  “It’s never happened, to my knowledge, except in fictional stories.”

  “Explain it more, please?”

  “A movie is just a projected image from a story that is acted out and recorded so it can be replayed later. It’s like a book, but visual in pictures and speaking instead of words that are read silently or aloud from pages.”

  “I see. So, you are telling me this is not real? That they are actors in a play of sorts?”

  “That’s right.” I paused the movie, so we could discuss this. “You’ve seen plays, Thorn?”

  “Yes. We have something like this where I come from. Performances from traveling bards. But the bards carry tales from the ages that truly happened. It is our record of history and does not deviate much from the actual events. Unless the bard is in his cups.”

  “What a great way to do it… pass on history, I mean.”

  “Well, not many bards where I lived could read and write. Those who did had limited ways to write.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “There was very little parchment on which to write and the cost was quite dear. Only the king and nobles could afford it. Also, charcoal was made to write with, which is a long process and not many had the talent or patience for making good charcoal and writing with it.”

  “Then bards must have been really popular where you are from.”

  “They were. They told us all that happened and sometimes even, what was foretold. Although the latter had varying outcomes depending on who was the audience. You never wanted to give a king a bad future in a song or story.”

  “I can see why,” I said. I got up from the couch and rummaged in a desk drawer. I came back with pen and a blank spiral notebook and handed it to him.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “To write with.”

  “Verily! I should have known you would have these. You must be a very high queen.”

  “No, I’m really not. Reading and writing are pretty commonplace nowadays in my country.”

  “Imagine that.”

  I clicked the ballpoint pen and showed him how to write with it and then handed it to him.

  He made a few strokes on the paper and then gasped. “It’s beautiful. Look how it works.”

  “It’s a gel pen. I love to use them.” I gave him the set with a pen in every color. “I got these from my brother for my birthday. I’ve hardly used them, though, but if you want, you can have them.”

  “A dear gift. I will cherish it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You or someone burned charcoal to make this?” he asked.

  “No, it’s made of chemicals, except the paper is made of trees.”

  “I do not know what that word is: chemicals. Do you mean alchemy?” he asked.

  “No, it’s more like science. No magic is involved. Just ingredients and recipes that make ink and plastic.”

  He used one of the pens to write his name in flowery letters in what I guessed was old Danish and showed it to me. “Oh, the joy of this beautiful writing instrument. It is breathtaking and near-miraculous.”

  “Pens are common here. Keep it and let me know if you need more.”

  “I am grateful. Will you write your name next to mine, so I can see how you write it?”

  “Sure.” I took a pink pen from the set and wrote my name and handed him back the notebook. He drew vines and flowers around our names to connect them. A rush of happiness went through me.

  “You write beautifully.”

  “My mother taught me. She was once a scribe for the old king, the one before Beowulf usurped his throne.”

  “What a world you came from.”

  “True that.” He looked longingly at the TV and its paused image.

  “So, do you want to watch the rest of the movie?” I asked casually.

  “Yes,” he said. “I want to see if the movie is truth or fiction. If it has a happy ending, I’ll know for certain ’tis fiction?”

  I nodded and restarted the movie.

  He sat quietly watching the Ladyhawke movie, tears running from his eyes as the hawk and the wolf—the enchanted lovers—kept getting parted by nightfall and daybreak by the spell that kept them apart. “How will they break this evil enchantment?” he asked.

  “You’ll see, just watch. I don’t want to spoil it for you by telling you what happens.”

  We watched through to the end and he wept during the credits, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “What a beautiful love story.”

  I handed him a tissue, and he wiped his eyes with it. “It’s one of my favorite tales, too.”

  I turned it off and sat next to him on the couch.

  “Yes, the ending was heartbreaking and yet, heart-healing. It was worth the wait. Thank you for not revealing it for me. The outcome, I mean.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of throwing out spoilers.”

  “Spoilers. What a strange word.” He looked out the window. “What is the hour, Lady Tam?”

  “Are you worried about changing to the dragon at sunset?”

  “Yes, I do not want to destroy your family’s manor house when I grow in size and transform and start breathing fire.”

  “I appreciate that. So does Mom.” I looked it up on my phone. “We still have two hours left before sunset. Do you want to go into the backyard and then you don’t have to worry about wrecking the house at sunset?”

  “That sounds wise.”

  “It’s chilly out there, though, and it will get even colder after sunset. I want to grab a sweater.”

  “A sweater is an outdoor garment?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I showed him my zip hoodie and put it on over my shirt and then we walked outside.

  “What is that clever closure called on your sweater? I know I have them on these trousers gifted to me by Lord Anthony.”

  “It’s called a zipper. A lot of clothes have them. And we aren’t royalty. You don’t have to call us lords and ladies because we aren’t.”

  “I suppose ’tis more of a habit born of respect.”

  “That’s a good way to be,” I admitted. “You can call me Tam or Tammy, though. Since that’s my name.”

  “Tam, you live in a world of such marvels,” he said, touching the front of my hoodie and running his hands up and down the zipper. He touched the zipper pull at the top. “May I try it?”

  “Sure.”

  He pulled it up and down and shook his head in wonder. “I have never seen the likes of such a device that opens and closes clothing with such swift cleverness. And gives such a satisfying zzzuh sound.”

  “And I have never seen the likes of… you.” I couldn’t stop staring at Thorn. He was beautiful, and I really wanted him to kiss me. Again, but this time, in the flesh.

  He might have known what I was thinking because he smiled softly and there was an amused look on his face. “Let us go into your door yard.”

  “Backyard,” I corrected him.

  He nodded and followed me out past Anthony, who was rooting around in the pantry again
for, what else, food!

  I hopped up on the battered wooden picnic table, which gave us a pretty good view of the western sky. I patted the table next to me. I also checked my phone, but there was no word from Mom.

  “What color you have in your skies here. Where I come from, they are mostly all gray and rainy.”

  “Our colorful sunsets come from dry dust and air pollution and the sun shining through it.”

  “Air pollution is smoke and cinders as I have seen floating when I fly at night?”

  “You got it.”

  “How odd that such filth in the air creates these red skies at late afternoon and into evening tide.”

  “You’re telling me. But this is the world I live in, where something ugly like pollution, and even mass wildfires, can create something beautiful like an orange sunset.”

  “What is that word: orange?”

  “It’s a color, named after a fruit.”

  “You have fruit the color of the evening sky?”

  “Yes, and they’re delicious. You want an orange?”

  “I do, but I don’t want it to spoil my appetite for the meat I will hunt tonight.”

  “Oh, right. You eat only meat as a dragon.”

  “And I eat meat and everything else as a man, but I want to talk to you now, not eat.” He sat next to me, and his sword clanked on the table leg.

  “Sounds serious.”

  “It is.”

  “You can take that sword off,” I said. “Just relax.”

  He patted it. “No. It’s my ancestral sword. It’s rarely off my hip. I asked your mother to take it out of the gun safe and let me wear it around the house, in case something might happen where I might need it. I promised her I would not stride the neighborhood with it.”

  “Okay,” I said patiently. “You know what you’re doing, obviously. So, do you sleep with it on?”

  “No, next to me, though I rarely sleep in the daytime.”

  “Or at night, apparently. Why do you wear a big sword all the time in the day?”

  “In the event that someone comes to kill the dragon while he walks as a man.”

  “I get it,” I said. “I’m so sorry people tried to kill you just because you’re a dragon.”