by Max Andren
“What happened to your brothers?” I asked interrupting him. “You told me that you were on a quest to find one of them.”
“I had two brothers. Jakoi, the middle brother and Aiden, the youngest. Jakoi died long ago, passing over to the other side. I mourn him every day,” he said with a heavy heart, “he died protecting me,” he confessed and then hurried to continue before I could ask what had happened, but the pain was evident.
“Aiden disappeared after being cursed and trapped by dark magic. I’ve searched for him endlessly through the centuries and refuse to rest until he’s found.”
The guilt and remorse he felt, along with his abject pain over their loss, was pouring through our strange connection. He continued to shield me from the emotions associated with the voices of the lost, but his were leaking through unawares.
“But in my journey to find Aiden, I have found and collected other dragons along the way. First, I found Ian and then the two of us found Isabella. The twins came along next and now—there’s you.”
He was creating his own family, but I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the dragon clan back in Scotland.
“We are precious few. The Scottish clan has been viciously hunted by drampires and murdered for our essence. They love to strike when we are divided, especially when our warriors are away. They crave and covet our immortality.
“In their quest to become immortal, they’ve become a vampire of sorts—altering the very fabric and trajectory of their culture and consequently ours as well. We had to divide our clan and go into hiding. We hoped to divert the drampires from the mated dragons. We want to give them the chance to create more dragon offspring.”
“What do you mean, a vampire?”
“Traditional vampires feed on the blood. Drampires feed on emotional energy and dragon essence.”
“Is there really such a thing as a traditional vampire?” I asked. I couldn’t wrap my head around either one actually.
He answered me with a quote from Shakespeare, “There are more things in heaven and earth.”
“Drampires have devised a way to syphon the life force from others and feed upon that strong emotional energy that was reaped in the process. It’s a temporary fix for them, but can extend their lives beyond that of a normal human being. However, if they can inflict a mortal injury on a dragon or more specifically, a Phoenix Dragon like me, then they could live indefinitely. But to do that, they’d have to steal the dragon’s essence and force them to transfer their immortality.”
“I don’t imagine that would be an easy task. I wouldn’t think any dragon would willingly give that up.”
“No, they wouldn’t and as long as my dragon heart beats, I will never give those leeches my power!” He said emphatically.
It was terrible that drampires had hunted dragons almost to the point of extinction, or at least for the Scotland clan. I wondered if they operated globally? Did they coordinate their efforts? Or did they prefer solo acts of murder and mayhem—robbing families of their loved ones all to prolong their finite lives?
“Those are good questions, Pena and we’ll address that later,” he commented.
Geez, it was like he was plucking the thoughts right out of head, just as they came to me. I shook my head and smiled. I needed to work on that.
“Once I became immortal and the sharing of my life force was born, drampires have tried to steal my essence numerous times throughout the centuries. Their attempts to kill me have grown tiresome. I moved around a lot over the past couple of centuries in my search for Aiden, so the attempts on my life have decreased. There have been none since moving to Kansas City.
“My people have always been magical,” he continued, “and have been persecuted throughout history for these magical differences and abilities. My branch just happened to be dragons, but there are other types of clans out there,” he explained.
“I was told I came from a mixed Scottish heritage. I was adopted from Scotland as an infant.”
“I thought as much considering we are able to communicate with our minds and the fact that you hear and feel others,” he said.
Foreboding settled into my already unsettled stomach and I felt weaker—if that were possible.
“Sister, pull back your aura. You’re too weak right now to offer the healing of your essence.”
I looked up to him startled. I didn’t realize I could do that, but now that he pointed it out, I could see my aura circling him. It was if, I was trying to comfort and heal his weary heart and soul—and perhaps mine in return.
It was one of the most miraculous things I had ever seen, besides Cipriano and the others shifting from dragon to human and back again—that was pretty cool. Oh and flying on Cipriano’s back—hard to beat that one!
I watched my aura, it was a blend of colors, but predominately white at the moment. Later I would learn that I’d been surrounding him in the white light of healing and protection—something I’d been doing for years without even realizing it.
Until I died, I had never seen an aura before and was thankful I had never seen Dr. Hanley or the guards’ auras. I pictured them as being muddy and as black as evil—lacking the vibrancy and clarity that I saw in Cipriano’s aura and in mine.
I had a lot to learn about this new world I found myself inhabiting. I didn’t choose this path in life, it had chosen me, but I’d have to decide what to do with it.
If I didn’t like this new existence, I could leave and never look back. I could allow the voices of the lost to carry me away.
Cipriano was right, I was too weak to offer my healing essence to him. I could feel the decrease in my energy from doing so. But, I didn’t know how I engaged my aura to begin with, so I wasn’t sure how to pull it back.
I decided not to overthink the process and simply thought to myself, come home to me, talking to it, as if it would understand exactly what I wanted. Surprisingly, my simple thought was all that was required because in the next moment my aura no longer surrounded Cipriano and had returned to me.
“Cipriano,” I said, “will you teach me how to shield myself now?”
10
“Yes, let’s get started,” he told me. “What’s something that you have always loved?”
There hadn’t been a lot of things to love in my life, but I told him, “I have always been drawn towards music.”
“Perfect, then we will use music to create a protective shield.”
I loved the idea of using music as a shield. I had played with creating music as diversion during my dungeon hell and remembered those flickering golden notes and wondered whether they had been real.
I played music as a child, the piano specifically. Back when love was plentiful and freely given and I was the center of my parents’ world and not the bane of their existence. I was their little Snow White, instead of their demon-possessed child.
“Yes, let’s get started, but I don’t want to play the piano,” I said resolutely.
“You don’t technically have to play anything, as it’s all mental. But if it would help you to visualize our lessons, then you could use the cello that Ian abandoned years ago. It’s around here somewhere.”
That had been weeks ago when Cipriano started my musical lessons in protective shielding. He was right, it was more mental, but he explained how to accomplish the shielding in several different ways. I experimented with all of them until I found the one that suited me best.
One method for creating a mental shield of protection was utilizing bricks. They made for a solid wall of protection. I could layer them one on top of the other to achieve a barrier that was solid and impenetrable.
I found bricks to be mentally laborious, not to mention that I felt like I was back in my dungeon hell and suffocating in the dank darkness. Not my first choice.
I concentrated on weaving music instead. The process perfectly suited my soul. I loved hearing and visualizing the notes as I wove them together to form a musical tapestry that became my protection.
When I first picked up the bow and ran it across the cello strings, it was the most hideous sound and resembled a screeching cat. If it hurt my sensitive ears, I could only imagine what it was like for my dragon companions.
The others would fly away to keep their ears from bleeding—but not Cipriano. He patiently tolerated my fumbles as I learned my way around the cello and taught myself how to play it with proficiency.
Cipriano was a mentor, a friend and a father figure depending on what was needed. I would need all three over the months that followed.
I’d always been musically inclined, so it didn’t take long for me to get the knack of making music and weaving the notes into a protective wall to hide behind. Eventually everyone stayed to listen while I played. The cello became my voice—speaking what I could not vocalize.
Inevitably, years of buried emotions surfaced and bled into every note I played.
Ian was a sensitive soul and I could feel his emotions when he let his guard down during these rare moments. I had seen him wipe his eyes on more than one occasion. Isabella would offer her mate comfort and support, by cuddling closer to him. Her love for Ian was quiet, yet fierce.
I asked Cipriano why Ian cried.
“We have all suffered great losses. This is the perfect excuse to release some of the emotions we keep buried, lest they bury us in return.”
I could definitely understand that. Today I was melancholy and the cello resonated that fact perfectly—weeping when I could not.
I mastered the cello and learned to build my protective walls, but it still felt like something was missing and I told Cipriano so when we were outside walking. I needed the exercise to regain my strength, but I could spend hours outside basking in the light—something that had been a rarity for me since I had been a little girl thrown away.
Daylight, moonlight, starlight, sunrise and sunset—fractured or full bright, it didn’t matter. Each one offered something uniquely beautiful to see and to feel.
“Cipriano,” I asked through my mind, “what am I? How is it that I can I hear all of you in my mind? Why can I see auras? When I drank of your dragon essence, your life force, did that change me?”
“No. You are as you have always been, though only just now realized. When you died—the essence of who and what you are was finally unlocked. You, my dear Sister, are family in truth. You are dragon.”
“WHAT!” I screeched through my mind.
I watched as Cipriano placed his fingertips to his temples, “Sister, volume if you please. Remember, our mind speak is a two-way street.”
“Sorry,” I replied chagrined, “you’re telling me that I’m a dragon—like you?” I asked at a lower volume.
“A Phoenix Dragon to be specific or at least I believe so.”
“But, you don’t know?”
“No, I don’t know for sure because we don’t know who your biologic parents were.”
“So you have no idea if I can shift or not?” I asked through mind speak, as my voice had yet to return. A blessing for all those involved. However, I had perfected my body language and the ability to roll my eyes to silent perfection.
“No, and you could die the first time you try to go through the shifting process. Which is why I haven’t discussed this with you. I wanted you to build the strength of your shields first, as well as your stamina,” Cipriano told me hesitantly.
“But as I build strength, Mia loses it. I know you must feel it too. She’s weakening. You can’t choose me over her!”
“I do sense it, just like I did with you. But I’m not choosing one over the other. Everything has its place and its time. Can you focus on her? Use your shields to block out everything but Mia’s voice.”
I could hear her in my mind and feel her in my bones. She was the most subdued of all the voices that were vying for my attention. The key was to focus on her as my beacon of calm within a screaming sea of pain and noise.
I was learning to build and control my own shields. Learning to pick out certain voices and emotions, mainly I searched for Mia—the little girl in my mind.
Mia was so very quiet, it was difficult to locate her. I had to concentrate and work hard at excluding everything and everyone. It took a lot of patience and too much precious time.
I needed to find her and quick, just like Cipriano and the others had found me. Her essence was dying and I knew Mia was fading away.
I understood now what Cipriano must have gone through when trying to find me and why he kept yelling at me not to fade. It was painful to feel her and know that I might not find her in time.
“Well, okay then!” I decided, right then and there.
Whatever. I had lived far past the time I expected to. Dying under the wide open and forgiving sky would be the perfect way to enter the other side.
Reaching inside, I searched for that special place hidden deep within my soul. The place where the naive and unrealized power lived. It experienced periods of expansion and contraction as it developed and became actualized.
I had no idea what I was doing, but didn’t care.
“No! You mustn’t shift until you learn how!”
But he was too late. I was already lost and immersed within the essence of my soul.
11
One minute Cipriano wanted me to focus on finding Mia and the next minute I was shifting into my dragon-form. It was obvious I didn’t know what the hell I was doing because hours later and well into the night, I was still a dragon.
I couldn’t figure out how to shift back and finally gave up trying.
I had felt compelled to find Mia. She was in pain and crying for help. I needed to reach her before it was too late. I could feel her time was coming to an end. Her essence weakening—hopelessness consuming her.
I understood that feeling all too well. I’d lived in that dark place too, where all hope was lost and you just wanted to die, take your last breath and cease to exist—once and for all.
I wanted to save her from dying without hope, dying without knowing or feeling love once more. I would give her that. I couldn’t erase what she was experiencing right now, but I could teach her, as Cipriano had taught me, to embrace those dark, lonely places and channel those feelings of worthlessness and shame into something positive and worthwhile.
With no consideration for the consequences, I had thrown myself recklessly into that pool of power. I had no idea what to expect or how to do it. We had never spoken about the mechanics of how Cipriano and the others were able to shift. They just seemed to do it and with little thought.
Initially it felt like I was immersed within a kaleidoscope of colors—euphorically floating on a current of peace and quiet and yet, I felt stretched and scattered all at once.
Concentrating hard, I pictured a dragon in my mind and then became one, just like that. Though I was kind of a small one.
I entered my new dragon body and saw that my world had been completely transformed. All my senses were hypersensitive and acute. It must have taken a moment for me to recover from the shift and become acclimated to my new form because I found myself gently cradled in the palm of Cipriano’s hand.
I looked up at him with my new dragon eyes and thought to myself, oh shit, I really screwed up! I must be tiny as hell if I could fit into the palm of his hand.
“You are far too reckless little one, but you did it! You shifted into a beautiful dragon and with no help,” Cipriano admonished, yet praised me, then continued on to say, “but you need to learn to do it with more control and after,” he emphasized, “a bit of instruction. Next time you might want to choose a more proper sized dragon, instead of a little hatchling—though you are rather cute.”
Come to find out, when shifting you could decide if you wanted to be big or small and since I didn’t know that at the time, I ended up very small.
I opened my mind so he could hear me, “I know. I didn’t think. I just felt compelled to reach Mia. We have to find her, Cipriano.”
What I felt from Mia w
as a strange dichotomy. On one hand, her soul felt so young and fragile and yet, at the same time she felt ancient. I’d been able to connect with her, tethering her soul to mine. It was risky, but how could I not. I just wouldn’t tell Cipriano. I was certain that he would tell me to pull back, that I was far too weak and healing from my own hell.
Plus, I still didn’t know the ins and outs of being a dragon. Whatever, I’d learn on the fly—finding her was far more important than being a skilled and proficient shifter. I didn’t feel like I had the time to learn the particulars of how to shift or how to function in this new world. I would just have to learn as I went along.
“We will find her. Have faith in that, Sister.”
“Charani,” I corrected him.
“Yes! That’s perfect. It means Phoenix.”
“Thank you, it seemed fitting.”
“I want you to concentrate, Charani. Visualize yourself, as you are normally, and not in your little dragon form,” he chuckled.
He clearly enjoyed teasing me about being so little. He had carried me back into the house after I had shifted and now we were in the great room with everyone in attendance.
“What does my Phoenix Dragon look like?” I asked, dying of curiosity.
“Besides being little? You are perfectly proportioned. Your wings are an iridescent blue like ours, but your scales are pearlescent and flame red too. An unusual combination, yet we all have our differences. I’m curious to see what happens to your hair when you shift back for the first time.”
“Is that why Ian and you have a section of hair that’s a different color? I asked them.
“Yes,” answered Ian, who had a black in his auburn hair, “and poor Cip got the short end of the old man stick with his dark hair and white stripe.”
We all started laughing. I was giggling in my mind and thought of myself belly laughing in truth and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor laughing out loud. I didn’t even recognize my own voice, until I realized I was the only one laughing and the room was completely silent.